Evidence for God

[RainyDayNinja]

I've heard a lot of people on these Religion boards and elsewhere about the evidence for God. Most atheists and agnostics will claim that there is no evidence, while theists will claim that there is. That leads to a question that I don't think has been covered here: What constitutes evidence for God?

I don't think anyone doubts that there have been thousands, if not millions, of accounts of miraculous events throughout history, even up to the present day. On the other hand, I don't think anyone doubts that many of these have been hoaxes, hallucinations, or misunderstandings. For the sake of illustration, I have two friends that have told me of personally experiencing miraculous healings, which they were able to see happening directly, after being prayed over. While I didn't see either of these events with my own eyes, I have no independent reason for doubting their truthfulness, and they both mentioned multiple witnesses present.

So for the "non-believers": What would you accept as evidence for God? Does my account qualify, and if not, why not?

For the "believers": What evidence do you accept for the existence of God? How would you differentiate between possibly legitimate visions, miracles, etc., and hoaxes or misunderstandings?

[benbradley]

As I believe now, I can't imagine anything that could convince me that God exists. I'd much more likely believe someone had done a slight-of-hand or other trick, or slipped me a psychoactive drug, than believe claims than an incident I'd seen or experienced myself was a God-induced miracle.

I think that many or most believers claim faith, and so don't need evidence. Some may consider looking for evidence to show a lack of faith, or even be blasphemous.

[callalily61]

This is totally not antagonistic or anything, honest: I can't see myself telling the stories of my God-encounters in this forum. All y'all are great people and I like to interact with you as fellow writers, but such intensely personal experiences are, well, personal. I think I've talked about them with four people.

Perhaps others will feel the same. Don't know.

And that's probably why I'm not a "good" Christian: because I don't try to convince anyone of the reality of God or that any one faith's experience is the only right one. For example, my friend's encounter with The Morrighan was incredibly similar to one of my encounters with Jesus. So.

[Ruv Draba]

One atheist has been very thorough and documented a two-part (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rqUsC2KsiI) guide (http://www.youtube.com/watch#v=4qmcOG-na4E&feature=related) on Youtube, describing what it would take to convince him. He also asks the reverse question: what would it take to convince you there was no god?

For me, his tests are not tests of godhood, but for something we might call 'magic', so they wouldn't actually persuade me about theism -- and like Ben I'm not sure that they'd persuade me of magic either. It seems to me that there's nothing stopping a search for physical cause for any event -- no matter how surprising.

The only effective definition I've ever been able to find for 'god' is a cultural one: a figure that people worship. Since I'm not disposed to worshipping figures and can't see why I would, I can either take the position that gods exist for others but not for me, or that no gods exist at all because morally, I consider figure-worship to be empty and unwise.

[ColoradoGuy]

I understand your interest, ninja, but for myself don't find it a fruitful line of inquiry. Faith and evidence (with the associated realm of science) are, as Stephen Jay Gould wrote, nonoverlapping Magisteria.

It is, however, an old question. For example, check out St. Anselm's so-called Ontological Proof for the Existence of God (http://www.princeton.edu/%7Egrosen/puc/phi203/ontological.html). It dates from the 11th century.

[Ruv Draba]

This is totally not antagonistic or anything, honest: I can't see myself telling the stories of my God-encounters in this forum.I 'd be reluctant in your place too, Lily. It may not be possible for some punters here to comprehend, much less sympathise with, what you've experienced -- and if it's sacred to you then their candid responses could be unpleasant or hurtful.

My own head seems to be wired well away from the ability to comprehend stuff mystically, much less understand others. I can't even find the right questions to ask about mystical experiences. All I can do is hit them with a hammer and pick through the pieces trying to understand it -- and people generally don't want hammers on their sacred crockery. :)

But if you did post about something personal and mystical in this forum, I for one would hope to recognise that and not hammer-smack or challenge it. I'd hope that our other hard-wired rational/material/objectives would be respectful enough to do the same. :)

[DeleyanLee]

My first question would be "How is 'god' defined?" because I don't default to the Judeo/Christian standard.

Depending on the definition, the requirements might change.

[AMCrenshaw]

I like the ontological argument because it's really elegantly silly.

Hence there is no doubt that there exists a being than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

And the naming of this being is "God", which allows the other properties of "God" - frex. goodness, omniscience, omnipotence, etc - to piggyback their way into existence!



AMC

[Ruv Draba]

I liked it too. Thanks for posting, CG! I'm not sure what it does for ontology (the study of what exists), but think it's a really important early foray into epistemology (the study of what is knowledge). As an argument though, I stumbled at step one. St. Anselm seems to have loaded up with Platonic assumptions that I can't personally swallow.

[AMCrenshaw]

Right -- like how exactly did the Fool understand the claim, again?

[Ruv Draba]

Exactly. This Fool alas, didn't. :)

[STKlingaman]

Faith is all the evidence you need.
That is why it's different for everyone,
and religion is flawed.
You and the relationship you have with
your God is yours and yours alone.
Believe in God or not - arguing about
is foolish.

[Ruv Draba]

Courage is all the faith you need.
That is why all inspiring myths,
Are tales of human courage,
And mystic promises of pelf or peace,
Are empty, and to dream of them
When one may act instead,
Is foolish.

[ColoradoGuy]

I liked it too. Thanks for posting, CG! I'm not sure what it does for ontology (the study of what exists), but think it's a really important early foray into epistemology (the study of what is knowledge). As an argument though, I stumbled at step one. St. Anselm seems to have loaded up with Platonic assumptions that I can't personally swallow.
Anselm was indeed a Platonist. He lived before the Aristotelian invasion into theology that found its apogee with Aquinas.

[ColoradoGuy]

Exactly. This Fool alas, didn't. :)
I first encountered it when I was an 18-year-old freshman in college. There was a lot of WTF? from us as our patient professor tried to explicate.

[Ruv Draba]

Anselm was indeed a Platonist. He lived before the Aristotelian invasion into theology that found its apogee with Aquinas.Well, Eastern Orthodoxy has managed to keep its Platonism all this time, while in the west the Deists seem to be holding out pretty well. I have no personal use for Platonism, but wouldn't see it gone from our world -- it spawns far too much genius.

I suppose it's the job of Aristotelians to apply the necessary Natural Selection to keep Platonic bloodlines pure. ;)

[Paul]

Course if we could prove God existed, then He wouldn't

[PeterL]

Before you start trying to define the evidence, I think that you should define the question. Specifically, what sort of god do you mean? Evidence of some Gods and Goddesses is readily available. No one Can deny the existence of Bacchus, because he is wine, and there are other Gods of the same sort. If you mean some "infinite god" then you should define in detail. Then there are the ones that are somewhere in between. About 15 years ago on Prodigy we had a lengthy back and forth about proving whether "God" (the Christian one) existed. All sorts of attempts were made, and they were all quickly destroyed, except one that looked like it might prove that a limited deity existed, or could exist.

[RainyDayNinja]

Sorry ColoradoGuy, but I don't accept the classification of faith and evidence as non-overlapping magisteria. To make such a distinction is to claim that God (or some other spiritual/metaphysical/supernatural being) has never intruded upon the physical world, a very strong negative claim that can't be proven. Any god, as conceived by any but the most extreme deist, will have made an impact on some part of the natural world, which can then be observed and analyzed.

Also, I wasn't referring to abstract philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Anyone can wriggle out of a philosophical argument by finding some premise they disagree with. I'm talking about actual physical observation of the form "I prayed to deity X, and immediately saw the object of my prayer realized, in a way that can't be explained by natural laws as we understand them."

Edit: Perhaps I should expand the question to include evidence for supernatural entities or influence of any kind, i.e. gods, spirits, reincarnation, etc.

[ColoradoGuy]

Sorry ColoradoGuy, but I don't accept the classification of faith and evidence as non-overlapping magisteria. To make such a distinction is to claim that God (or some other spiritual/metaphysical/supernatural being) has never intruded upon the physical world, a very strong negative claim that can't be proven. Any god, as conceived by any but the most extreme deist, will have made an impact on some part of the natural world, which can then be observed and analyzed.
Don't be sorry -- lots of folks don't agree with me. My evidence of God at work is the selfless, good act done with no expectation of return from it. But that's not really evidence if you don't share my conception of God. If you don't, it becomes mere question begging -- using the conclusion to prove the premise. But it is one reason I agree with Gould.

[Ruv Draba]

I like the idea of Non-Overlapping Magisteria, except that when I come to applying it in a way that seems sensible to me, it's not Gould's division and I think that most theologists wouldn't accept it. Morality for example, is an entirely secular question to me. I'd allow theology to monitor it, but not to drive it. I see selfless good as being as much part of the human condition as pointless spite, so it's not mystical to me. Cosmology is also secular, which means that only the most toothless creation myths are admissible, and theological metaphysics are not (in fact, I'm not sure that any metaphysics is, except as speculation for new physical experiments).

What's left is essentially storytelling as an adjunct to human decency, spiritual art for the joy of it, and ritual for its own sake -- which coincidentally are all the things about religion that delight me, and none of the things that irritate.

So perhaps the key problem of a functional NOMa is who sets the boundaries. :)

[AMCrenshaw]

IMO, to the extent one can translate meanings of poetry into facts, faith and evidence are overlapping Magisteria.

Hmm. I wouldn't mind hearing "metaphorical" evidence (as gods are certain to exist in the realm of poetry).

Perhaps a different thread? :D


AMC

[Paul]

Before you start trying to define the evidence, I think that you should define the question. Specifically, what sort of god do you mean? Evidence of some Gods and Goddesses is readily available. No one Can deny the existence of Bacchus, because he is wine, and there are other Gods of the same sort.

OMG!!!! (OMB!!!)

At last a God I can believe in....

[Paul]

Of course, the definition of God is 'that which cannot be proven to exist'

Cos if one could, well then,what'd be the point?
We all believe, and so that's it. No doubt, no dispute etc.
(assuming it is one God, clearly defined, which is what we're talking bout)
So, cos he can't be proven, he exists.
simple really....

[AMCrenshaw]

so theoretically, if everything that has a reported effect in the universe can be proven to exist or not, do you still think god alone (:) part of the definition, if one is "that which cannot be proven to exist") would remain unprovable? We could prove everything or not, "save god." "Keep god safe," as Derrida wrote, I think.

[Ruv Draba]

Hmm. I wouldn't mind hearing "metaphorical" evidence (as gods are certain to exist in the realm of poetry).And in fiction in general.

The essence of compelling fiction is to turn concentrations of mood and conflict into character. It's natural to create gods in fiction, just as it's natural that our best poets tend to be mystics, and that gods are postulated by our more poetical souls who can easily see them in waking dreams. Functionally it's almost possible to create a behavioural 'proof' of deity as 'that ineffable to which I consistently react'. It's a 'no smoke without fire' sort of proof that I think actually is a proof for many people.

And though I'm a strong rationalist/materialist I don't really want to challenge that claim except to point out that it's not objective because it's not shareable by everyone. Poetry in particular, fiction in general, and art more broadly, are definitely their own NOMas.

[ChristineR]

Well, I think there's a lot of evidence for God. Most of it just isn't very good. Here's a number of things that I would accept as evidence. Together they should give you an idea.

If, when people prayed, a piece of cardboard appeared in the air in front of them, saying something like WELL, I WASN'T GOING TO DO THAT, BUT SINCE YOU ASKED NICELY, I'LL RECONSIDER or THAT'S NOT PART OF MY GRAND PLAN.

If mile high burning letters appeared in the sky reading THERE IS NO GOD BUT GOD AND MOHAMED IS HIS PROPHET, or whatever equivalent fits your favorite faith.

If in our junk DNA we found encoded the Lord's Prayer, in the original Greek.

If when people sincerely prayed for God to tell them which religion they should join, they always got an overwhelming sense of the right answer, and it was always the same answer.

If a prophet were able to make accurate predictions that always came true. We're talking "Next year in Okinawa on July 3 they'll be an earthquake of magnitude 6.5," not "They'll be an earthquake in Japan, soon."

If when Catholics prayed to be healed from some horrible disease, they were healed more often than protestants, non-Christians, and people who didn't pray at all.

Commenting on the first post: It's impossible to gauge how miraculous these healings were without more information. A lot of times people describe something as a miracle when all that really happened was that they had a very good response to the medical treatments, say in the top 1% or even top .1 percent as expected by chance. I don't count these as miracles. If you look at the bottom 1% of outcomes...everyone's dead. So you don't have a lot of people telling you "I prayed for a good outcome from my serious illness and I ended up in the bottom 1%."

Furthermore, people are notorious for misremembering things like this. Your description makes it sound like the person grew back a limb before the witnesses eyes, or something like that. But none of these things ever seem to be captured on video, or documented by doctors. It's always something that happened to a friend of friend, and the details, like what the person was sick with, who diagnosed it, how they diagnosed it, what the doctors said afterward, and on and on, always seem to be hazy. I'd be a lot less skeptical if there was even one good solid, documented case of someone getting better from something that people don't normally get better from, along with solid evidence that the person was not misdiagnosed, either before or after the healing event.

[AMCrenshaw]

Ruv Draba, what's more shareable than a story?*



AMC



* it just struck me: jesus feeds 5000 with a story! we all take a piece of it away with us...

[CACTUSWENDY]

I am in the same boat as Lilly. What few things I have shared have been very few because unless you have had something this personal you would not take my word for it. What started as a grain the size of a mustard seed.....etc.

Best wishes to those of you that do share.

[callalily61]

I'm talking about actual physical observation of the form "I prayed to deity X, and immediately saw the object of my prayer realized, in a way that can't be explained by natural laws as we understand them."


Um, this.

And ya gotta take my word for it, because it's part of the stuff I've only told 3 people. If that. :) Sorry.

[Ruv Draba]

Ruv Draba, what's more shareable than a story?*An epidemic, because you know when someone's sharing a story.

[Canotila]

When we're discussing God in this thread, are we talking about the Judeo-Christian god or just any higher intelligence? Just wondering for the sake of clarity.

In the case of the Judeo-Christian god, there will never be hard, solid, irrefutable proof that he exists. God will not allow it, because it would defeat the entire purpose for us being here. The whole point of coming to earth and having our pre-mortal memories wiped is so that we can be tested, make mistakes, learn, and grow. If everybody knows God exists, and that we will for certain be held accountable for our actions, we're not going to behave in a way that is true to our character. We're going to behave like Big Brother is looking over our shoulders and that's not what he wants.

I have a personal knowledge that God is real. I know that he knows us all as individuals, and he cares about all the mundane piddly things going on in our lives. A person can get that for themselves. I've had piddly little miracles happen. I've had major prayers answered. I've seen and experienced major miracles for myself. I've been dead, but didn't stay dead. During that time I saw things that will stay with me forever. Things that nobody can ever take from me. However, none of those things can or should convince somebody else. It's a very personal thing. If you want to find out for yourself, you have to look for yourself.

[Katrina S. Forest]

I have a personal knowledge that God is real. I know that he knows us all as individuals, and he cares about all the mundane piddly things going on in our lives. A person can get that for themselves. I've had piddly little miracles happen. I've had major prayers answered. I've seen and experienced major miracles for myself. I've been dead, but didn't stay dead. During that time I saw things that will stay with me forever. Things that nobody can ever take from me.

I agree with this completely. (Though my specific personal experiences differ, of course.) I suppose you could check my brain activity while I'm praying to see that it does have an effect on my feelings and emotions, but I'm sure few people would consider that proof that God and I are having a conversation.

Even if you don't think anyone could ever prove God's existence to you, I think it's always a topic worth discussing. Maybe you'll find faith, maybe you won't, but you never know if you don't talk about it.

Proving that something or someone does not exist is borderline impossible, imo. You can say it doesn't appear to exist, but there's always the possibility, however slight, that you just missed it.

[knight_tour]

I can't imagine any evidence that could convince me that a god exists. Even if a being materialized in front of me and was clearly powerful beyond all belief, and even if that being said straight out that it was GOD ALMIGHTY, I still have no reason to believe it. As far as I am concerned it would just be an example of a far advanced form of life that exists in the universe.

I view this the same way that I view the word 'supernatural'. In my opinion the word 'supernatural' should not exist. If something can happen, no matter how mindboggling it might be to us, it is natural. The same with the idea of 'gods'. If a being exists, then it is a being, no different from any of the beings here on earth other than in its characteristics. So, I don't believe in the concept of 'gods', just in 'beings'.

[aruna]

This is totally not antagonistic or anything, honest: I can't see myself telling the stories of my God-encounters in this forum. All y'all are great people and I like to interact with you as fellow writers, but such intensely personal experiences are, well, personal. I think I've talked about them with four people.




I'm with callalily on this; but for anyone who knew me "before" and "after" --- well, I myself am the living proof! :) What a wreck of a human being I used to be! The 35-odd years since my "conversion" (and yes, I was a confirmed atheist requiring external evidence) have made of me a living miracle, and it's all down to prayer and meditation.
I'm almost a different human being now; the transformation is internal, and ongoing (I'm not nearly finished yet) , but the evidence is external for all to see.

As a one-time atheist I completely understand the need for external proof. But when that proof does come you understand that it's an experience, not a cardboard sign descending from the sky; and not anything you could ever have imagined (far better!).
Le coeur a ses raisons, que le raison ne connait pas. Blaise Pascal

[citymouse]

The most comforting aspect of God is that He believes in us even if some of us don't believe in Him.
C

[PeterL]

Of course, the definition of God is 'that which cannot be proven to exist'

Cos if one could, well then,what'd be the point?
We all believe, and so that's it. No doubt, no dispute etc.
(assuming it is one God, clearly defined, which is what we're talking bout)
So, cos he can't be proven, he exists.
simple really....

Make up your mind. Either wine exists or you have been missing something.

The idea that you propose is called "the God of the Gaps."

[PeterL]

I can't imagine any evidence that could convince me that a god exists. Even if a being materialized in front of me and was clearly powerful beyond all belief, and even if that being said straight out that it was GOD ALMIGHTY, I still have no reason to believe it. As far as I am concerned it would just be an example of a far advanced form of life that exists in the universe.

I view this the same way that I view the word 'supernatural'. In my opinion the word 'supernatural' should not exist. If something can happen, no matter how mindboggling it might be to us, it is natural. The same with the idea of 'gods'. If a being exists, then it is a being, no different from any of the beings here on earth other than in its characteristics. So, I don't believe in the concept of 'gods', just in 'beings'.


Wine exists, and Bacchus is the God of wine and wine itself. Ekwamedha is Drunkenness, if you have been drunk, then you experienced her. There are many similar examples.

[Canotila]

I view this the same way that I view the word 'supernatural'. In my opinion the word 'supernatural' should not exist. If something can happen, no matter how mindboggling it might be to us, it is natural. The same with the idea of 'gods'. If a being exists, then it is a being, no different from any of the beings here on earth other than in its characteristics. So, I don't believe in the concept of 'gods', just in 'beings'.

I can definitely see your logic here. And I agree. My god is a being. A being can be a god, though I think in part, what makes them godlike is the extraordinary characteristics. Things like omnipotence, omnipresence, immortality, etc.

Or like Peter points out, a god can be any object of awe or worship. If you worship by getting drunk, then maybe wine is your god. Personally, wine is just rotten grape juice to me. It doesn't hold much value to me except as a marinade, but that doesn't make it any less significant for some people. To some people my god is an imaginary crutch for weak minded sheep, and that doesn't make Him any less significant to me.

Now here is my question:

Does a being or object need worshipers to achieve godhood? I mean, something mundane like wine, or cats, or a lump of gold shaped into a calf could be considered gods because of their spiritual significance to individual people.

But if there was a being or class of beings who were immortal, all seeing, all knowing, and all powerful, would they be considered gods by virtue of their extraordinary characteristics? Even if they led a sheltered existence and nobody else knew about them?

[knight_tour]

Does a being or object need worshipers to achieve godhood? I mean, something mundane like wine, or cats, or a lump of gold shaped into a calf could be considered gods because of their spiritual significance to individual people.

But if there was a being or class of beings who were immortal, all seeing, all knowing, and all powerful, would they be considered gods by virtue of their extraordinary characteristics? Even if they led a sheltered existence and nobody else knew about them?

I don't believe that any being can actually be all-knowing/all-powerful. That is simply too utterly fantastic and contrived to be believed. To me it's like kids trying to one-up each other. "Yeah, well my god can do this!" and so on until you get the ultimate of being able to know and do anything and everything. It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. Sorry, I am not trying to offend, just stating things the way I see them.

As far as 'worship' goes, I see it as a purely human failing. The very concept of it is about being so in need of demonstrating being 'above' someone that you require them to prove it to you. A human king or queen can demand such a silly thing, because they have the weaknesses of human fear and selfishness that require others to show obeisance to them. If a god or gods did exist, then there are only two possibilities as far as I see it. One is that the gods are decent and not full of human frailties, in which case they would of course not need any such thing as worship. Or, they could be weak, selfish beings and actually demand worship, in which case there would be no need to worship them, because they would not be worthy of it. In other words, there is never a need to worship any being. Just live life the best you can.

[ChristineR]

I have a personal knowledge that God is real. I know that he knows us all as individuals, and he cares about all the mundane piddly things going on in our lives. A person can get that for themselves. I've had piddly little miracles happen. I've had major prayers answered. I've seen and experienced major miracles for myself. I've been dead, but didn't stay dead. During that time I saw things that will stay with me forever. Things that nobody can ever take from me. However, none of those things can or should convince somebody else. It's a very personal thing. If you want to find out for yourself, you have to look for yourself.

I'm quoting Canotila here, but I don't her to feel like I'm singling her out. This is for anyone who has said they have this sort of evidence for God.

What would you say to people who have had major prayers ignored? Who needed a miracle, and who didn't get one? What about the vast majority of dead people who were not revived? What do you say to their families?

The clincher for me is that when you look at people as a group, there's no evidence that people who pray are more likely to get a medical miracle than anyone else. The doctors sometimes pull it off, but they don't pull it off any more often with religious people than with the rest of us. What you end up with is a small group of people who were extremely lucky and who now believe in God, a larger group of people who then become atheist, and the largest group who rationalizes the lack of miracles as being part of God's plan, or something like that.

[Shadow_Ferret]

So for the "non-believers": What would you accept as evidence for God? Does my account qualify, and if not, why not?


Nothing short of meeting Him in person. I will only accept verifiable, quantifiable, absolute concrete physical here-in-the-flesh existence as evidence.

[knight_tour]

Nothing short of meeting Him in person. I will only accept verifiable, quantifiable, absolute concrete physical here-in-the-flesh existence as evidence.

I am curious, since I addressed this earlier, why you would believe such a being to be a god even if it did appear to you? What would make you consider it a god rather than just a far advanced form of life? Would it be simply that it has the standard characteristics of one of our gods? Couldn't a much advanced race choose to take on such characteristics in order to help its agenda? I'm just honestly curious, since I wouldn't accept a being appearing before me as being a god. I would just see it as an advanced being.

[Shadow_Ferret]

Advanced race? I don't believe in aliens, either.

But as I said, that being would have to be verifiable and quantifiable as a God to make me believe. So just appearing before me wouldn't be it. Scientific vivisection might.

[Paul]

so theoretically, if everything that has a reported effect in the universe can be proven to exist or not, do you still think god alone (:) part of the definition, if one is "that which cannot be proven to exist") would remain unprovable? We could prove everything or not, "save god." "Keep god safe," as Derrida wrote, I think.


No, not God alone. anything similar. Like em, black holes or whatever. Unprovable. so far. :)
Don't know bout the 'reported effect' - i never mentioned that and in fact i'm suggesting there is none.
On a side note the great thing bout the belief of God existing, is that it keeps some people from crackin up., which is always (mostly) good. Downside is believing in the wrong God. (not you, of course, t'other guy!)



Make up your mind. Either wine exists or you have been missing something.

The idea tat you propsoe is called "the God of the Gaps."

Finally, my ideas had accreditation.

Em, i do believe in wine. I just don't believe in paying for it.

[PeterL]

But as I said, that being would have to be verifiable and quantifiable as a God to make me believe. So just appearing before me wouldn't be it. Scientific vivisection might.


Wha do you mean by "verifiable" in this situation? And, if that god turned out to none physical, then how would you quantify it? I am just curious as to the standards.

[Paul]

Of course, the definition of God is 'that which cannot be proven to exist'

Cos if one could, well then,what'd be the point?
We all believe, and so that's it. No doubt, no dispute etc.
(assuming it is one God, clearly defined, which is what we're talking bout)
So, cos he can't be proven, he exists.
simple really....

Just to clarify, my point is that if the concept of a God was provable it would no longer work as an idea. cos believing in God by definition is an act of faith, not a indisputable fact. hence
God = the unprovable = cannot be disproved = God exists.

as I said before, simple really...

[RainyDayNinja]

Nothing short of meeting Him in person. I will only accept verifiable, quantifiable, absolute concrete physical here-in-the-flesh existence as evidence.

Ferret, if you looked at a scientific journal article that claims to show evidence of a new element produced in a particle accelerator, you would be implicitly trusting the truthfulness of the scientist who reported it. Also, the evidence for this new element would not be direct observation, but oblique measurements, interpreted through several layers of inferences and math that I'm sure neither of us would understand. The scientist is certainly not without motive to fabricate results (since new discoveries assure future funding), and such a hoax has been perpetrated in the past. So, assuming that you are not as skeptical in that case, where do you see the distinction?

[Paul]

Of course on the other hand God might not exist at all, (which in a way probably proves that 'he' does.)
Either way, it's fine.

Now, if the question is 'do we have to 'do stuff' (pray/worship etc etc) that's a different matter. Cos that's work/effort. I'm more a 'grand, God exists', long as i don't have to do nuthin kinda guy. Now we're on tricky water, cos we now have to actually give God a personality (loving, vengeful, etc) and maybe even a set of rules of behaviour etc. NOW we're talkin headache. But if it's , you know 'God', yeah he's great, can't define him, but, he's great - that's ok.
Basically I'm lazy and i like my gods the same way.

[Shadow_Ferret]

Wha do you mean by "verifiable" in this situation? And, if that god turned out to none physical, then how would you quantify it? I am just curious as to the standards.

If he can't be proved to exist, then I don't believe. That's my standard.

So, assuming that you are not as skeptical in that case, where do you see the distinction?

Who says I'm not that skeptical?
Just to clarify, my point is that if the concept of a God was provable it would no longer work as an idea. cos believing in God by definition is an act of faith, not a indisputable fact. hence
God = the unprovable = cannot be disproved = God exists.

as I said before, simple really...So... if it was proved that God DID exist, you'd stop believing?

[Canotila]

I'm quoting Canotila here, but I don't her to feel like I'm singling her out. This is for anyone who has said they have this sort of evidence for God.

No worries, and I'm glad you brought this up. To clarify a bit further, I don't have faith that God exists because of my experiences. I had that before any sort of evidence presented itself to me. I started out with faith, and that faith has grown into a knowledge. But not as a result of what happened. What happened is just confirmation for me, that I can't deny.


What would you say to people who have had major prayers ignored? Who needed a miracle, and who didn't get one? What about the vast majority of dead people who were not revived? What do you say to their families?

God's answer to prayer isn't always yes. It doesn't always come in the time frame we would like it to. Just like parents say no to their children, he says no to us if what we're asking for isn't in our best long term interest. None of us are going to live forever, I'm going to die some day even if it did get delayed.

I've had thousands of prayers where I didn't get the answer I wanted to hear. In the long run, it has worked out for much better for me that I didn't get what I was asking for. Some times it's a matter of knowing what to ask. When someone passes, some times it is better to ask for comfort and peace. While it hurts, the time we spend apart from our loved ones when they pass is literally a blink of an eye compared to the rest of eternity.

For what it's worth, medical intervention had no bearing on me coming back. I was flat lined and efforts to resuscitate abandoned. By all rights I shouldn't be able to put together a coherent sentence, but here I am typing away.


The clincher for me is that when you look at people as a group, there's no evidence that people who pray are more likely to get a medical miracle than anyone else. The doctors sometimes pull it off, but they don't pull it off any more often with religious people than with the rest of us. What you end up with is a small group of people who were extremely lucky and who now believe in God, a larger group of people who then become atheist, and the largest group who rationalizes the lack of miracles as being part of God's plan, or something like that.

That's the thing I was saying earlier though. God won't allow evidence of his existence to build, because it runs contrary to his plan. If everybody knows he exists and we're accountable for our actions because the giant glowing face of God beams down at us from the clouds daily, we're not going to have the chance to experience the same growth as we do on our own.

As far as 'worship' goes, I see it as a purely human failing. The very concept of it is about being so in need of demonstrating being 'above' someone that you require them to prove it to you. A human king or queen can demand such a silly thing, because they have the weaknesses of human fear and selfishness that require others to show obeisance to them. If a god or gods did exist, then there are only two possibilities as far as I see it. One is that the gods are decent and not full of human frailties, in which case they would of course not need any such thing as worship. Or, they could be weak, selfish beings and actually demand worship, in which case there would be no need to worship them, because they would not be worthy of it. In other words, there is never a need to worship any being. Just live life the best you can.

I see my relationship with God as more of a parent/child relationship. The whole point of being born and living a mortal life is to experience good and bad, joy and sadness, and learn how to make decisions without the direct influence of our heavenly parents. I believe that God wants us all to grow to our fullest potential, and come back to live with him when we're done because he loves us and likes having us around. He provides guidelines on how to live the best life you can, for people that want them. To me he is more of a parent/guide/mentor than an overlord. Worshipping him, to me, is more about learning to trust. And for me that has been a rewarding experience.

[Paul]

So... if it was proved that God DID exist, you'd stop believing?

:D

It's not the existence thingy, it's any accompanying rules/ hassle.

Let Him off, if He exists, that's ok
If not, what's the difference?

Course you will have those with a whole plethora of 'differences' but that's just they're own version(s)

[ChristineR]

One of things that I mentioned as being credible evidence for God would be, in fact, answers to prayers. Personally, I've never heard of anyone getting their prayers answered. I've heard of people getting things they prayed for, but not actual answers--"Yes, no, maybe." It's all well and good to tell a person whose life is falling apart and who has prayed for help that it's part of God's plan, but it doesn't always work out in the end. The problem I have with it is that it's meaningless. If you get something, the answer was yes. If you don't get it, the answer was no. How is this different from God not existing?

It may have been all part of God's plan to have someone's life be completely destroyed and end in a suicide--but how would you know?

Really, all I want is for there to be something concrete, something that doesn't come down to how people interpret something.

[Paul]

Really, all I want is for there to be something concrete, something that doesn't come down to how people interpret something.

By definition there can be no such thing.
If there was indisputable proof of the existence of God, just consider what that would actually mean. Think about it for a moment.

See?


Ipso facto (latin, meaning 'I'm bluffin') there cannot be proof of God's existence.

[Shadow_Ferret]

By definition there can be no such thing.
If there was indisputable proof of the existence of God, just consider what that would actually mean. Think about it for a moment.

See?


Ipso facto (latin, meaning 'I'm bluffin') there cannot be proof of God's existence.

I'm missing your logic. Indisputable proof of God is proof of God.

To me, if there cannot be proof, that means he doesn't exist.

[Paul]

I'm missing your logic. Indisputable proof of God is proof of God.

To me, if there cannot be proof, that means he doesn't exist.

Well, it certainly means His existence can't be proven.



My previous statements he exists therefore he doesn't were really just goofing around, but the last two are real comments.

However the question 'does God exists' is completely pointless and meaningless, as one first has to define the God one's referring to and what such an existence might mean. that's the question required before the question 'does God exist' question

[AMCrenshaw]

All we deal with are our own constructions.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I assumed we were talking about the Judeo-Christian God.

[Paul]

I assumed we were talking about the Judeo-Christian God.

Well even they're two different Gods
But assuming it's say the Jewish God, the same still holds - unprovable and always will be - as the non-provability is inherent in the definition of God
because if it could be proven without contest, well ....

[ChristineR]

By definition there can be no such thing.
If there was indisputable proof of the existence of God, just consider what that would actually mean. Think about it for a moment.

See?


Ipso facto (latin, meaning 'I'm bluffin') there cannot be proof of God's existence.

No, I don't see. I actually have thought quite a lot about what it would be like to live in a world where there was indisputable proof of God's existence. I really don't see it causing God's head to explode. In fact, I don't see any compelling theological argument why there shouldn't be proof of God, unless you want to argue that God sees some benefit in misleading people.

For example, God only wants 20% of the world to go to heaven, and wants the last 80% to burn in hell. So He provides the correct amount of proof to convince the most gullible 20%, and rewards them with heaven. This might be possible, but it doesn't make God look real good.

[Paul]

the God thing is a bit like the 'meaning of life' thing
If we found thee meaning of life and it was
'to build a wooden hut near a river'
then that's what everyone would do.
then what?
The meaning of life is to accept that there is no meaning. :D - it's the need for 'certainty' which is the prob. esp as 'certainty' does not exist.

[Paul]

No, I don't see. I actually have thought quite a lot about what it would be like to live in a world where there was indisputable proof of God's existence. I really don't see it causing God's head to explode. In fact, I don't see any compelling theological argument why there shouldn't be proof of God, unless you want to argue that God sees some benefit in misleading people.

For example, God only wants 20% of the world to go to heaven, and wants the last 80% to burn in hell. So He provides the correct amount of proof to convince the most gullible 20%, and rewards them with heaven. This might be possible, but it doesn't make God look real good.

If God were to exist without doubt, then an absolute definition of God would be required and a set of rules of engagement (worship, rules etc). Now everyone has the same God, with the same definition, the same 'set of rules'. So now your given the choice whether to break the rules or not - except you won't cos you know for a certainty that God exists and breaking the rules displeases him. ergo (bluff) God can never be accepted universally as an indisputable absolute.

It's the doubt that give the God thing its power, without that there could be no God.

[ChristineR]

Sorry Paul, you lost me right where you said "bluff." Presumably after we all wake in hell, God will be universally accepted as an indisputable absolute. Therefore, if and when human life becomes extinct, then God will be universally accepted as indisputable absolute.

[Paul]

Sorry Paul, you lost me right where you said "bluff." Presumably after we all wake in hell, God will be universally accepted as an indisputable absolute. Therefore, if and when human life becomes extinct, then God will be universally accepted as indisputable absolute.

sorry, my 'bluff' comment was a joke i.e. I'm quoting Latin, but doen't take that too seriously kinda thing

As for the hell thing, that'd be a pretty good definition of hell...

[small axe]

My emphasis ...

As I believe now, I can't imagine anything that could convince me that God exists. I'd much more likely believe someone had done a slight-of-hand or other trick, or slipped me a psychoactive drug, than believe claims than an incident I'd seen or experienced myself was a God-induced miracle.

That's valid; except doesn't it also (imo) suggest that you've set aside the "right" or basic intellectual starting point of ASKING for evidence OF God (since you disallow all possible evidence) ?

If "no evidence is possible of God" ... then no lack of evidence could inform or justify your non-acceptance of God, either?

I think that many or most believers claim faith, and so don't need evidence. Some may consider looking for evidence to show a lack of faith, or even be blasphemous.

Christian scripture (at least) specifically offers that position: Jesus quotes scripture to the devil that one shouldn't "test" God (the devil had suggested Jesus throw himself off a skyscraper, so angels could catch his fall) ... and Jesus tells Thomas that though he has placed his own hands inside the Resurrected Christ's wounds ... blessed are those who believe WITHOUT having the same gory evidence.

Whether other religions' scriptures ask more than "faith" is a more complex issue, I suppose.

Knight Tour writes:

I can't imagine any evidence that could convince me that a god exists. Even if a being materialized in front of me and was clearly powerful beyond all belief, and even if that being said straight out that it was GOD ALMIGHTY, I still have no reason to believe it. As far as I am concerned it would just be an example of a far advanced form of life that exists in the universe.

Again, a valid point. But again, totally denying the POSSIBILITY of "evidence" -- setting ASIDE the tool of "evidence" ... and thus (just imo) removing the rational justification for DENYING God/gods' existence.

Rejecting the possibility of "evidence" then your "faith" is that God doesn't exist, another's "faith" is that God exists.
It's not even two sides of the same coin ... it's the SAME side of the same coin.

Happy for us all, the coin is EXISTENCE. :)

I view this the same way that I view the word 'supernatural'. In my opinion the word 'supernatural' should not exist.

Oddly, that's always been my position too: nothing is 'supernatural' ... it either exists or it does not exist. If it exists, it is natural (though God can be 'natural' and still be Transcendent of material "Nature" ... Nature's CREATOR can imo still be untouchable and undefined by Creation, being either apart from it or beyond it.


If something can happen, no matter how mindboggling it might be to us, it is natural. The same with the idea of 'gods'. If a being exists, then it is a being, no different from any of the beings here on earth other than in its characteristics. So, I don't believe in the concept of 'gods', just in 'beings'.

Well, but there may be a tar pit of semantics there, distinguishing between mere words of "beings" versus "gods" -- Human language simply calls a being an arbitrary word, doesn't it?
"What sort of being do we mean? A human being?" one asks
"No ... a 'god' being." comes the answer.
Definitions elude us, of course, but some distinction is being explored and shaped there, right?

Add to that the issue that in Hinduism, aren't gods spoken of as being either "BOTH, or BEYOND, existence and non-existence" ??? So if we're discussing GODS, "NON-existence" has a bearing on them that it doesn't have if we're discussing material objects in material mundane nature.

PS ... For those who insist there is NO material evidence that God exists ...
Some would counter that ALL EXISTENCE is evidence of God. :) The fact that we are humans annoyed that we can or cannot find "evidence" is enough proof ... because we are HERE, being annoyed.

In that viewpoint, the dilemma of distinguishing "evidence OF God" from what isn't ... isn't that nothing IS "evidence" but that EVERYTHING is evidence. There is nothing that can be determined as NOT being evidence of God to compare the evidence of God TO.

Merely saying "This can be explained NATURALLY" is pointlessly forgetting that the answer only works if we can determine where NATURE comes from separate from Nature coming from GOD.

Some are misled (possibly) by expecting GOD to always operate via MIRACLES that distort "natural law" ... when reasonably it could be suggested that God is BEING Godly when God lets the Universe run according to God's CHOSEN laws of the Nature God created.

Space/Time in all its glory is "miracle" and "mindblowing" enough to be Divine. That WE are here, even here to be unimpressed by that glory ... well, perhaps every Creation disappoints its Creator. :(

Where's my evidence of God? You just read it, maybe. YOU. Reading. It. Surrounded by a Universe of unimaginable WONDERS.

[DeleyanLee]

Whether other religions' scriptures ask more than "faith" is a more complex issue, I suppose.

I'd just like to point out that not all religions are faith-based or have revealed scripture, yet are still religions.

Many of these discussions tend to default the Christian god--for understandable reasons--but thinking that all religions/beliefs aret based in the same tenets or structure can be part of the common misunderstandings and repeated arguments.

[AMCrenshaw]

That WE are here, even here to be unimpressed by that glory ... well, perhaps every Creation disappoints its Creator.

Have you watched the atheist tapes? They're available through netflix, and I'm sure a few other sources. There was a Christian professor on there who had that same mind set. For me, that astonishment doesn't go away if there is no Creator, and might even increase its intensity.


AMC

[AMCrenshaw]

Sorry Paul, you lost me right where you said "bluff." Presumably after we all wake in hell, God will be universally accepted as an indisputable absolute. Therefore, if and when human life becomes extinct, then God will be universally accepted as indisputable absolute.

Couldn't it have been heaven?

[ChristineR]

Couldn't it have been heaven?

Good point--there are gods who forgive us unbelievers. But we were talking about having faith in God despite the lack of evidence, which sort of implies the conservative worldview that God rewards the faithful and punishes those of us who make our choices based on the evidence.

[Katrina S. Forest]

What would you say to people who have had major prayers ignored? Who needed a miracle, and who didn't get one? What about the vast majority of dead people who were not revived? What do you say to their families?

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying every time I pray for healing, it happens. I've prayed for months that someone would get better, but they didn't. I've lost someone so quickly I never got the news that they were hurt - just that they were gone. I've seen a couple miraculous yes's, but I've gotten some devastating no's, and I do not understand why each answer came out as it did. In some instances, I have seen good come from the situation, and others, I still don't get it at all. I know I pray to a God who's experienced hurt and loss too. I know that if I had not prayed through these incidents, I would not have made it through them.

It might sound cheesy to some people for me to say, "God's in control" or "He's got a plan," but the opposite is to expect my head to wrap around the thoughts of Someone who sees things in view of eternity. I may understand many things, but understanding everything is not going to happen this side of heaven.

To someone who's prayed and prayed and not seen the miracle he/she asked for, I can honestly say, "I'm sorry, I know that it hurts," and if I felt it was appropriate to ask, I would say, "Can I pray for you?"

[aruna]

What would you say to people who have had major prayers ignored? Who needed a miracle, and who didn't get one? What about the vast majority of dead people who were not revived? What do you say to their families?
.

One of things that I mentioned as being credible evidence for God would be, in fact, answers to prayers. .
The problem is regarding God as a sort of Santa Claus who is supposed to do what we want. All major religions teach that it's not about getting what we want. In Christianity it's The Will be Done, in Islam Inshallah, in Hinduism it's surrender, in Buddhism it's the giving up of desire.

"God didn't answer my prayer" is like a child who didn't get the candy!
Prayers for greater strength, for understanding, for more love, more compassion -- that sort of prayer is always answered. It's all about our growth. Not about changing circumstacnes.


I'm missing your logic. Indisputable proof of God is proof of God.

To me, if there cannot be proof, that means he doesn't exist.

So a thing only exists after it has been proven to exist? Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? All the discoveries of science: they didn't exist before science proved their existence?


PS ... For those who insist there is NO material evidence that God exists ...
Some would counter that ALL EXISTENCE is evidence of God. :) .......snip.......

Merely saying "This can be explained NATURALLY" is pointlessly forgetting that the answer only works if we can determine where NATURE comes from separate from Nature coming from GOD.

.

This is my point of view too. All of nature is a miracle. Look at the human body, look at the way everything in nature interacts with everything else, the co-dependency of all things in existence.... for my it is more incredible that that should have come about randomly, than that a greater unifying Intelligence -- which I call God for want of a better name -- is behind it.

And by the way, that god I didn't believe in as an atheist -- I still don't believe in him -- he's nothing but a straw man.

We humans think we're so clever, clever enough to know the last secrets of the universe, God, etc. We're not! It's like an ant, or an amoeba, trying to figure out how humans work.
Or like the characters in our novels trying to prove the existence of us, the authors -- if there IS a God, it just can't be fathomed by our puny minds.

But I cant believe that I've AGAIN been drawn into a by definition silly "does god exist" thread! :rolleyes:

[Julie Worth]

As I believe now, I can't imagine anything that could convince me that God exists. I'd much more likely believe someone had done a slight-of-hand or other trick, or slipped me a psychoactive drug, than believe claims than an incident I'd seen or experienced myself was a God-induced miracle.

I think that many or most believers claim faith, and so don't need evidence. Some may consider looking for evidence to show a lack of faith, or even be blasphemous.


Atheism has the characteristics of a religion, as Ben shows here. He won't believe his eyes, even if presented with evidence that contradicts his deeply held beliefs.

[aruna]

Atheism has the characteristics of a religion, as Ben shows here. He won't believe his eyes, even if presented with evidence that contradicts his deeply held beliefs.

His god is a strawman.

[Paul]

His god is a strawman.

Strawperson


Anyone remember Ben Stiller pleading in Zoolander after his father's cutting comment to him that he was 'a Mermaid'?

Merman! papa, Merman!


one of the funniest lines ever written.

[Mac H.]

For the sake of illustration, I have two friends that have told me of personally experiencing miraculous healings, which they were able to see happening directly, after being prayed over. While I didn't see either of these events with my own eyes, I have no independent reason for doubting their truthfulness, and they both mentioned multiple witnesses present.I know what you mean.

I've had friends who have been to faith healings and have been convinced they have seen miracles with their own eyes. In one example, they were both convinced that the fillings in their teeth had been changed to gold.

I have no idea why they believe it, but they both believe it was a miracle that they saw with their own eyes after prayer - and they say many other witnesses saw it.

Many witnesses have seen people healed at Benny Hinn's ministries too. However, when people have followed up on the healings it seems that the blind are still blind (despite being 'healed' in front of witnesses) the people needing kidney transplants are still on dialysis (despite being 'healed' in front of witnesses) etc.

So clearly, people being 'healed' in front of witnesses is actually hopelessly poor evidence.

So for the "non-Benny-Hinn-believers": What would you accept as evidence for the healing power of Benny Hinn? Does the accounts of the people who 'witnessed' the healing count? If not, why not?


To answer your question. A faith healing that heals something that might have got better by itself isn't impressive.

If an amputee's limb was to grow back after prayer then I would be impressed. That is trivial for an omnipotent God - and certainly doesn't even get close to some of the miracles that have have been claimed to happen in the past.

Mac

[PeterL]

If he can't be proved to exist, then I don't believe. That's my standard.



Then you aren't looking for proof that a god exists, you are looking for something that fits a set of specification that you dreamed up (but have not disclosed). If Gods and Goddesses are other than what you specify, then either they do not exist, or they must be something else. That sort of reasoning is fine for religious dogmas, but it doesn't work in philosophy or science, where proof means something definite.

[PeterL]

Of course on the other hand God might not exist at all, (which in a way probably proves that 'he' does.)
Either way, it's fine.



We have already determined that some Gods and Goddesses exist, and there is no doubt about that.

[ChristineR]

The problem is regarding God as a sort of Santa Claus who is supposed to do what we want. All major religions teach that it's not about getting what we want. In Christianity it's The Will be Done, in Islam Inshallah, in Hinduism it's surrender, in Buddhism it's the giving up of desire.

"God didn't answer my prayer" is like a child who didn't get the candy!
Prayers for greater strength, for understanding, for more love, more compassion -- that sort of prayer is always answered. It's all about our growth. Not about changing circumstacnes.



No, I'm afraid you're misunderstanding what I said. I don't expect God to give people what they want every time they pray. What I said I would accept as evidence for God would be answers. Actual answers, like "yes," "no," or "not right now." "No" is a perfectly valid answer.

And yes, people do pray for greater strength to deal with their own problems, and not get it. Believe me, if God answered those prayers, a lot of ex-Christian atheists would still be Christians.

However, if you're going to accept those times when someone does get something that appears unlikely as evidence for God, then I would ask you how this is distinguished from random chance. So I would also accept people who pray getting what they want (cure from illness) more often than people who don't pray as evidence for God. This, however, is not a selfish position, not a demand that God give us what we want all the time.

Finally, I'll point out that the New Testament says Christians who pray will get what they want. Elsewhere this is hedged--you'll get it if it's part of God's plan.

[kuwisdelu]

We have already determined that some Gods and Goddesses exist, and there is no doubt about that.

What?

This is news to me.

Aphrodite hasn't been returning my calls. Maybe you know where she is.

[ChristineR]

Atheism has the characteristics of a religion, as Ben shows here. He won't believe his eyes, even if presented with evidence that contradicts his deeply held beliefs.

Atheists have different levels of proof that they'd demand for a deity. I don't think it's unreasonable to rule out psychoactive drugs and tricks before you start believing God is real. When I made up my list of evidences, I specifically excluded "Being of Light standing in front of me" because I knew that this one was relatively easy to fake and I didn't want to throw in qualifiers like "After I'd eliminated all possible trickery...." But I think it goes without saying that those of us who demand evidence will take the possibility of trickery seriously before we accept it.

[kuwisdelu]

Proof for me?

If his voice sounds like Morgan Freeman's only awesomer, then it's probably God.

Anything else would be an imposter.


I'm not sure. God is kind of like art. "I know it when I see it."

[aruna]

No, I'm afraid you're misunderstanding what I said. I don't expect God to give people what they want every time they pray. What I said I would accept as evidence for God would be answers. Actual answers, like "yes," "no," or "not right now." "No" is a perfectly valid answer.


You mean, an actual voice, saying yes, no, etc?

[PeterL]

What?

This is news to me.

Aphrodite hasn't been returning my calls. Maybe you know where she is.

It may be how you were calling her and for what purpose. Just because you have not had a specific response doesn't mean that a certain God or Goddess does not exist.

Aphrodite is not an easy one to contact, because she is usually busy.

[aruna]

And yes, people do pray for greater strength to deal with their own problems, and not get it. Believe me, if God answered those prayers, a lot of ex-Christian atheists would still be Christians.

I believe it's mostly praying for the problems to be removed, rather than strength.
I've never known a prayer for strength to be denied. Never. The burdens are never more than we can bear; but sometimes we are tested to the utmost, but give upl because we no longer have faith in that strength. It is there. Always.

However, if you're going to accept those times when someone does get something that appears unlikely as evidence for God, then I would ask you how this is distinguished from random chance. So I would also accept people who pray getting what they want (cure from illness) more often than people who don't pray as evidence for God. This, however, is not a selfish position, not a demand that God give us what we want all the time.


This happened to me a lot, many years ago. Everything I wanted just happened, the moment I prayed properly, selflessly. Like the time I was in prison, in Colombia, no money, no lawyer, no hope of release. The moment I let go, and prayed sincerely, with all my heart, for strength to accept the circumstances: that very hour a policeman came out of the blue on a motorbike, took me away, and let me go.

That gave me a lot of faith, just as you say. But then the time comes when things don't go according to your plan; where you have no control. That's because you have matured, and no longer need outward signs.

But these are experiences one has to go through oneself. No amount of another's stories and anecdotes can convince someone else.

Finally, I'll point out that the New Testament says Christians who pray will get what they want. Elsewhere this is hedged--you'll get it if it's part of God's plan

I think people get what they want for a while, at the beginning, so that they grow in faith -- as I mentioned above. And then -- it's no all the way. And that no is good!

[Julie Worth]

You mean, an actual voice, saying yes, no, etc?

There's a very popular book where God mails the protagonist a note, asking to meet him in a shack. There's no stamp on the note, so apparently that means it's from God. The title is The Shack. It's horribly written, but no matter, wrap up a novel with God, get some good blurbs for the back, and it's going to sell.

[ChristineR]

You mean, an actual voice, saying yes, no, etc?

Yes, an actual voice, or notes, if you prefer, or letters in the air, or even an overwhelming sense of what the answer is. Why not? God could surely arrange it, if He wanted to.

I know many people, including myself, who have prayed for the strength to get through something and were denied. If it were really that simple, there would be no suicides, and no people in mental hospitals.

[aruna]

Yes, an actual voice, or notes, if you prefer, or letters in the air, or even an overwhelming sense of what the answer is. Why not? God could surely arrange it, if He wanted to.
This is a very anthropomorphic God you have here! :)
For the record, "an overwhelming sense of what the answer is" is something that resonates with me; though it is seldom what I myself would have wanted!

I know many people, including myself, who have prayed for the strength to get through something and were denied. If it were really that simple, there would be no suicides, and no people in mental hospitals.
But you got through it, didn't you? You're here, aren't you?
I agree that it's not simple; there's an art to prayer and we don't always get it right. But when we do get it right those trials and burdens are exactly the things that make us strong -- as long as we don't give up.

[ChristineR]

This is a very anthropomorphic God you have here! :)
For the record, "an overwhelming sense of what the answer is" is something that resonates with me; though it is seldom what I myself would have wanted!

Are you always right? If someone could pray and get the right answers more often than someone using common sense, that would be acceptable evidence for the existence of God.

Not everyone gets this sort of sense of communication with God. It was always very frustrating for me that it didn't work. I kept trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. Eventually I concluded that there's something about the way some people's brains are wired that causes them to have these feelings. If the people who did have the feeling had been right more often than the rest of us, or less likely to sin, or just happier, it would have been different.

I
But you got through it, didn't you? You're here, aren't you?
I agree that it's not simple; there's an art to prayer and we don't always get it right. But when we do get it right those trials and burdens are exactly the things that make us strong -- as long as we don't give up.

While I am technically, still here, I did not "get through" it. A huge part of my life was destroyed, and it would have been more merciful if I'd just died early on. My experiences did not make me stronger, they made a complete wreck. There are things that no one should have to experience.

[knight_tour]

Proof for me?

If his voice sounds like Morgan Freeman's only awesomer, then it's probably God.

Anything else would be an imposter.


I'm not sure. God is kind of like art. "I know it when I see it."

Morgan Freeman? Shouldn't it be James Earl Jones?

[NewKidOldKid]

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying every time I pray for healing, it happens. I've prayed for months that someone would get better, but they didn't. I've lost someone so quickly I never got the news that they were hurt - just that they were gone. I've seen a couple miraculous yes's, but I've gotten some devastating no's, and I do not understand why each answer came out as it did. In some instances, I have seen good come from the situation, and others, I still don't get it at all. I know I pray to a God who's experienced hurt and loss too. I know that if I had not prayed through these incidents, I would not have made it through them.

It might sound cheesy to some people for me to say, "God's in control" or "He's got a plan," but the opposite is to expect my head to wrap around the thoughts of Someone who sees things in view of eternity. I may understand many things, but understanding everything is not going to happen this side of heaven.

To someone who's prayed and prayed and not seen the miracle he/she asked for, I can honestly say, "I'm sorry, I know that it hurts," and if I felt it was appropriate to ask, I would say, "Can I pray for you?"

So God wants you to beg for something over and over, in incredible desperation, and then he decides whether he wants to grant it to you or not? Maybe what seems like God answering a prayer here and there is actually just something that happens. Just because somebody can't explain something doesn't mean it's a miracle and God did it. It may simply be science we can't understand just yet.

[NewKidOldKid]

But you got through it, didn't you? You're here, aren't you? I agree that it's not simple; there's an art to prayer and we don't always get it right. But when we do get it right those trials and burdens are exactly the things that make us strong -- as long as we don't give up.

Actually, I know a couple of people who are still here not because they got through it but because (by their own words), they're not brave enough to kill themselves. I know somebody in a mental hospital because of something that happened to her. She certainly didn't get through it. And if there's a God who answers prayers, he's certainly a bastard for not answering hers. She is in miserable pain and has to live on medication for the rest of her life. Unless, of course, somebody can tell me that God made a mistake by not answering her prayers.

[NewKidOldKid]

\This happened to me a lot, many years ago. Everything I wanted just happened, the moment I prayed properly, selflessly. Like the time I was in prison, in Colombia, no money, no lawyer, no hope of release. The moment I let go, and prayed sincerely, with all my heart, for strength to accept the circumstances: that very hour a policeman came out of the blue on a motorbike, took me away, and let me go.

Have you read The Secret? According to the book's theory, the minute you stop being negative and have some faith that something will happen, chances are it will. The book will tell you it wasn't God but yourself opening up and believing in the possibility. If you had no concept of God, then you could easily believe that. In fact, I find that people who are absolutely convinced that God doesn't exist will find other ways to explain "miraculous" events.

[AMCrenshaw]

The "lock-key" system?

[Ruv Draba]

Atheism has the characteristics of a religion, as Ben shows here. He won't believe his eyes, even if presented with evidence that contradicts his deeply held beliefs.That's a different discussion, Julie. And it's generally unwise to go there. :)

[gothicangel]

Have you read The Secret? According to the book's theory, the minute you stop being negative and have some faith that something will happen, chances are it will. The book will tell you it wasn't God but yourself opening up and believing in the possibility. If you had no concept of God, then you could easily believe that. In fact, I find that people who are absolutely convinced that God doesn't exist will find other ways to explain "miraculous" events.

Didn't The Secret also get a load of bad press by insinuating people with disabilities where so because of bad negativity?

The 'positive thought' idea isn't new. The Barefoot Doctor was publishing books about it years before The Secret was published. It goes further back to the ancient philosophies of Daoism.

[benbradley]

Atheism has the characteristics of a religion, as Ben shows here. He won't believe his eyes, even if presented with evidence that contradicts his deeply held beliefs.
I used to have different deeply held beliefs, but when I questioned them, they changed. I still question my current deeply held beliefs, but so far I haven't found anything that I feel more closely matches reality.
His god is a strawman.
Strawperson


Anyone remember Ben Stiller pleading in Zoolander after his father's cutting comment to him that he was 'a Mermaid'?

Merman! papa, Merman!


one of the funniest lines ever written.
StrawENTITY, folks - get your terminology right!

[ChristineR]

Didn't The Secret also get a load of bad press by insinuating people with disabilities where so because of bad negativity?

The 'positive thought' idea isn't new. The Barefoot Doctor was publishing books about it years before The Secret was published. It goes further back to the ancient philosophies of Daoism.

Actually, it implied that babies with disabilities were born that way because their parents secretly hated them.

Not only that, it justified it all with handwaving around some very bad quantum mechanics, and ran not a single scientific study to show how this important truth might work. Sold a lot of books though.

[Ruv Draba]

I assumed we were talking about the Judeo-Christian God.The Judaic deity is also the one revered by Muslims. 'Allah' just means 'the God', and relates to the Hebrew word elohim. With 1-5% Muslims in many traditionally Christian countries and 1-7,000,000 Muslims in the US, I think it'd be more inclusive to say 'the god of Abraham' or somesuch. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing any Muslims participate in this forum yet, but I'd hope if we had some Muslim writers, they wouldn't feel excluded or second-class here.

[Dommo]

For me to believe in a god, it would have to pass scientific muster. E.g., something impossible happens under strictly controlled circumstances. An example might be the transmutation of water into wine, upon praying for it.

Literally something impossible would have to be able to be documented, measured, and recorded. I'm talking like something along the lines of an entropic reversal(e.g. cold flows to hot areas or something). Something that is so far out and out of the ordinary, yet can be irrefutably measured and more importantly can be REPRODUCED by anyone at anytime.

That's all there is to it.

[aruna]

Have you read The Secret? According to the book's theory, the minute you stop being negative and have some faith that something will happen, chances are it will. The book will tell you it wasn't God but yourself opening up and believing in the possibility. If you had no concept of God, then you could easily believe that. In fact, I find that people who are absolutely convinced that God doesn't exist will find other ways to explain "miraculous" events.

I haven't read the book but it sounds like some kind of New Age interpretation of ancient Eastern thought. And I also don't believe it works like that, because the intention behind the "stop-being-negative-and-have-faith" is that the thing that will happen is what YOU want. And that's an attempt at manipulation: your faith is actually not faith, it's Will.

The real trick is to give up thought and will altogether, even the thought of what YOU want. What happens then is usually very interesting.

Everyone should try it for a while: plunging out into the world with no plan, no intention, no desire, no security whatsoever. The most amazing things take place.

The real theroy behind it is that the world we live in is a reflection of our interior world, and the exterior world is a mirror showing us what needs changing. Change the interior, and the exterior changes too.

There are incredible depths of ability and strength within us. Prayer helps to open us to those depths. There's no trickery or magic or anything supernatural about it. You don't even have to believe in God to observe the process. It's just easier for most people to believe that God is making the change, giving us the strength, etc. In fact it is all right there, inside us.



Actually, it implied that babies with disabilities were born that way because their parents secretly hated them.

Not only that, it justified it all with handwaving around some very bad quantum mechanics, and ran not a single scientific study to show how this important truth might work. Sold a lot of books though.

This is the reason I never read New Age books.

[aruna]

Have you read The Secret? According to the book's theory, the minute you stop being negative and have some faith that something will happen, chances are it will. The book will tell you it wasn't God but yourself opening up and believing in the possibility. If you had no concept of God, then you could easily believe that. In fact, I find that people who are absolutely convinced that God doesn't exist will find other ways to explain "miraculous" events.

I haven't read the book but it sounds like some kind of New Age interpretation of ancient Eastern thought. And I also don't believe it works like that, because the intention behind the "stop-being-negative-and-have-faith" is that the thing that will happen is what YOU want. And that's an attempt at manipulation: your faith is actually not faith, it's Will.

The real trick is to give up thought and will altogether, even the thought of what YOU want. What happens then is usually very interesting.

Everyone should try it for a while: plunging out into the world with no plan, no intention, no desire, no security whatsoever. The most amazing things take place.

The real theroy behind it is that the world we live in is a reflection of our interior world, and the exterior world is a mirror showing us what needs changing. Change the interior, and the exterior changes too.

There are incredible resources of ability and strength within us. Prayer helps to open us to those depths. There's no trickery or magic or anything supernatural about it. You don't even have to believe in God to observe the process. It's just easier for most people to believe that God is making the change, giving us the strength, etc. In fact it is all right there, inside us. The only thing that gets in the way is ourselves: our desires, our clinging to concepts.



Actually, it implied that babies with disabilities were born that way because their parents secretly hated them.

Not only that, it justified it all with handwaving around some very bad quantum mechanics, and ran not a single scientific study to show how this important truth might work. Sold a lot of books though.

This is the reason I never read New Age books.

[NewKidOldKid]

I'm not saying the book is good. I was just saying that it's a different theory of why things happen. Also, when you pray, you pray for something specific to happen. "Please save me or cure me or whatever" So it's not about "Go ahead, God, do whatever you want" because if you already believe he will anyway, what's the point in telling him. He knows, doesn't he? He can see it all. So praying is "I want this, give me," which is basically the same principle behind the New Age/ancient Eastern belief you mention. With the difference that these two groups don't necessarily think God would give them what they want.


I haven't read the book but it sounds like some kind of New Age interpretation of ancient Eastern thought. And I also don't believe it works like that, because the intention behind the "stop-being-negative-and-have-faith" is that the thing that will happen is what YOU want. And that's an attempt at manipulation: your faith is actually not faith, it's Will.

The real trick is to give up thought and will altogether, even the thought of what YOU want. What happens then is usually very interesting.

Everyone should try it for a while: plunging out into the world with no plan, no intention, no desire, no security whatsoever. The most amazing things take place.

The real theroy behind it is that the world we live in is a reflection of our interior world, and the exterior world is a mirror showing us what needs changing. Change the interior, and the exterior changes too.

There are incredible resources of ability and strength within us. Prayer helps to open us to those depths. There's no trickery or magic or anything supernatural about it. You don't even have to believe in God to observe the process. It's just easier for most people to believe that God is making the change, giving us the strength, etc. In fact it is all right there, inside us. The only thing that gets in the way is ourselves: our desires, our clinging to concepts.

This is the reason I never read New Age books.

[aruna]

I'm not saying the book is good. I was just saying that it's a different theory of why things happen.

I realise you weren't promoting the book per se; I just wanted to make it clear that I'm not talking of the same thing as you described it in your post.


"Go ahead, God, do whatever you want" because if you already believe he will anyway, what's the point in telling him.
It's not quite like that. Surrender to God's will, or acceptance of it, is not just flippant words. It's a tremendously difficult exercise because of course we do want a specific outcome, and it's very hard to accept that that outcome may not happen; that life takes its own course whether or not we pray and that we cannot, and in fact should not even try to, influence that outcome through prayer. The point of the prayer is to find the strength to be able to handle a negative outcome; to deal with fear and cultivate equanimity in duress. That strength is within us. Prayer is merely a facilitator.
(I'm referring here of course to situations over which we have no or little control, in spite of our best efforts.)
So praying is "I want this, give me," which is basically the same principle behind the New Age/ancient Eastern belief you mention. With the difference that these two groups don't necessarily think God would give them what they want.
"I want this give me" might be New Age but it definitely is not Eastern. There's a whole different attitude between the original Eastern perspective and the New Age philosophies that claim to be derived from them; the attitudes are almost opposite!

[Katrina S. Forest]

Finally, I'll point out that the New Testament says Christians who pray will get what they want. Elsewhere this is hedged--you'll get it if it's part of God's plan.

Sorry if I misunderstood what you meant.

I know the passage you're referring to. The one about, "You can say to this mountain, go throw yourself in the sea", right? I have heard some interpretations that Jesus was speaking specifically to the disciples and not the Christians in general. I've also heard others argue that it must mean that if you didn't get what you wanted, you didn't have enough faith. Then I've heard others that argue that it was not meant to be taken so literally, but rather if you pray with faith, God will help you with the problem, but in His time and way, not yours. I'm honestly not sure where I personally fall on the interpretation per se, though I think between the three the last one makes the most sense to me. I'm sure there are other ideas I haven't heard of.

Just more food for thought, I guess.

[ChristineR]

Sorry if I misunderstood what you meant.

I know the passage you're referring to. The one about, "You can say to this mountain, go throw yourself in the sea", right? I have heard some interpretations that Jesus was speaking specifically to the disciples and not the Christians in general. I've also heard others argue that it must mean that if you didn't get what you wanted, you didn't have enough faith. Then I've heard others that argue that it was not meant to be taken so literally, but rather if you pray with faith, God will help you with the problem, but in His time and way, not yours. I'm honestly not sure where I personally fall on the interpretation per se, though I think between the three the last one makes the most sense to me. I'm sure there are other ideas I haven't heard of.

Just more food for thought, I guess.

Actually, I was thinking of Luke 11:10/Matthew 7:7 and John 15:7, ("Ask and it will be given...") but that one is fine also. My three are a little more interesting because John qualifies it. Also, it's worth looking at the Gospel of Thomas version, if you take Thomas seriously.

I have certainly heard that if you don't get what you've asked for, it means you don't have enough faith, but it's another empty interpretation. No one has come up with a "faith tester" and shown that people who have a higher faith score get more answered prayers. So you're left with a circular argument. If the prayer worked, you had faith. If the prayer didn't work, you must have had some lingering doubt.

I have no issues with a God that helps people with their problems in His own way. I just don't see any evidence that this is the case. Sure, sometimes things work out in a way you hadn't expected, but sometimes they don't work out at all.

If anyone could show good solid evidence that prayer helps people in this indirect way, more than something like cognitive therapy and the power of positive thinking would, then that would be a strong argument for being religious. If it was a real phenomenon, and it couldn't be reproduced by secular means, then that would be evidence for God existing, absolutely.

[blacbird]

Evidence for God? All I know is teenagers aren't it.

caw

[Diana Hignutt]

As a practicing mystic I reached an understanding:

1) The mystical experiences only have subjective meaning, that is, they only have meaning to the person experiencing them.

2) Attempts to form religion based on the mystical experiences of their founders, universally fail due to the tangling of objective and subjective.

3) All dogmatic religion is hooey.

Further, I have learned that "the supernatural" rarely manifests under circumstances that would be scientifically verifiable. A suspension of disbelief is required for the working of "magick."

However, I have some thoughts as to potential proof for the existance of "God".

1) Snowflakes. There's no damned good reason why snowflakes are unique and beautiful.

2) Why do the Sun and Moon appear the same size in the sky? Why do they line up for eclipses? A tiny variation and they wouldn't.

3) The synergistic principle of the universe.

4) Beauty. Truth. And various other Platonic ideals. But mainly, why are flowers beautiful to us? There's no reason why they should.

5) Water molecules appear to react to thought:

http://whatthebleep.com/crystals/

[PeterL]

As a practicing mystic I reached an understanding:

1) The mystical experiences only have subjective meaning, that is, they only have meaning to the person experiencing them.

That is just your ssubjective opinion. Most major and minor religions are based on the mystical experiences of the founder or another individual.

2) Attempts to form religion based on the mystical experiences of their founders, universally fail due to the tangling of objective and subjective.


Buddhism is a strong counter-example.


However, I have some thoughts as to potential proof for the existance of "God".

1) Snowflakes. There's no damned good reason why snowflakes are unique and beautiful.

Snowflakes have their forms as a result of randomness. If you find anything useful in their shapes then it should be the power and pervasiveness of randomness.

2) Why do the Sun and Moon appear the same size in the sky? Why do they line up for eclipses? A tiny variation and they wouldn't.

That's ,ore randomness. Wait a few billion years, and they will not appear the same size.


4) Beauty. Truth. And various other Platonic ideals. But mainly, why are flowers beautiful to us? There's no reason why they should.

There's a short answer, DNA, and there is a long answer that relates evolution and pheromones.

[Diana Hignutt]

I don't believe in randomness, but I encourage you to, you seem very good at believing in it.

[callalily61]

5) Water molecules appear to react to thought:

http://whatthebleep.com/crystals/

What the Bleep do We Know was utterly fascinating.

[Diana Hignutt]

What the Bleep do We Know was utterly fascinating.

Yeah, I have the version that's different everytime you watch it. They mix some metaphors when it comes to Quantum Physics, and have been taken to task for it. But, am I right, hands down the water molecule scene is the best.

[callalily61]

Yeah, I have the version that's different everytime you watch it. They mix some metaphors when it comes to Quantum Physics, and have been taken to task for it. But, am I right, hands down the water molecule scene is the best.

Agreed. Hubs and I just sat there watching the screen with our mouths open.

[ChristineR]

The water molecules trick can't be replicated by anyone else. What appears to be happening is that he stares at different samples until he sees an ugly one (if he's looking for unhappy molecules) or a pretty one (if he's looking for pretty molecules). Then he photographs it, and puts it in his book.

You can try it yourself. All you need is a microscope, a bunch of jars, a pad of sticky notes, and a freezer. Fill twenty jars with water, label them 1-20, and have a friend flip a coin twenty times, and put either nice or mean sticky notes all over the jars. Then have the friend remove the notes, and leave the jars in a room for you. (The reason you do it this way is so that the friend can't subconsciously tell you which jars were treated which way. The reason the friend flips a coin is that people tend to label jars in patterns, even when they're trying hard to be random.)

Then look at the water under your microscope. If you can get 17 of 20, you'll be eligible to win huge prizes--millions of dollars, put up by various psychic testers.

I talked above about the idea that lovely things like snowflakes are evidence of God, and not evidence of how much of our brain is dedicated to watching for things that move quickly (i.e., sparkle). Our brains are hard-wired to look for people, that is, we see a snowflake and don't see it as a characteristic of water and light, but as something as person might have made. In addition, we find it easier to accept that people just happen to exist than we find it easy to accept that an object that sparkles and shines and has crystalline symmetry might just happen to exist.

[PeterL]

I don't believe in randomness, but I encourage you to, you seem very good at believing in it.

I got the impression that you also believe in randomness, but you call it other things.

[Ruv Draba]

Many species see beauty -- for instance, many birds select on colour and intensity of plumage or grace of dance. The satin bower-bird also collects beautiful things (beauty to a bower-bird being anything blue, which is coincidentally the same colour as a male's plumage).

http://michaelsnedic.com/images/news/Satin%20Bowerbird%20displaying_news.jpg (http://michaelsnedic.com/images/news/Satin%20Bowerbird%20displaying_news.jpg)
(Image: Michael Snedic (http://michaelsnedic.com/))

A pragmatic way of explaining beauty is that it's an important part of competitive bisexual reproduction. Many species spend excess health and energy trying to be beautiful, which lets individuals demonstrate to potential mates just how successful they are. That humans see beauty in objects outside themselves might simply recognise the fact that we are gatherers, like bower-birds, octopuses and bees. It's interesting too that the proportions we like most in nature and art (e.g. the golden ratio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio)), are also those we find most in our own beauty.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BWOAaRhccT0/SomD4Lj3fjI/AAAAAAAAAEY/H4IFi9EhYN0/s400/goldenface_beautiful%20proportion.jpg (http://beautifulproportion.blogspot.com/2009/08/beautiful-proportions-of-face.html)
(Image from: beautiful proportions (http://beautifulproportion.blogspot.com/2009/08/beautiful-proportions-of-face.html) blogsite. )

Flowers work hard at being attractive to species that can help them reproduce, but a lot of their architecture is also based on utility. The proportions that give us beauty in a human face are based on the Fibonacci numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number), which are an especially efficient structure. They appear in snowflakes and flowers and... just about everywhere.

http://danielmclaren.net/files/images/2008/sunflower_by_esdras_calderan.jpg
(Image: Daniel McLaren (http://danielmclaren.net/))

Nature loves efficiency and Fibonacci numbers are screamingly efficient. But are they intrinsically beautiful or do we simply see them as beautiful because of how we reproduce?

We can tell ourselves any story we like of course, but if we try to apply our own standards to other species we may run the risk of anthropocentrism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocentrism) -- the idea that everything in the world is created especially to please or be useful to us. Flowers, for instance, are highly coloured in the ultraviolet range -- a range most useful to insects, but which humans can't naturally see.

http://johnhawks.net/graphics/uv_flower.jpg (http://johnhawks.net/graphics/uv_flower.jpg)
(False colour UV image: John Hawks (http://johnhawks.net))


Perhaps we can so easily see divinity in beauty because to us, beauty is a mythic, life-and-death matter -- so many of our stories feature fights over beautiful characters. But is all the beauty in existence ours to see? And are human ideals of beauty important to everything, or just to us?

http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/2093564/2156579/2158802/2160741/01_AyeAye.jpg (http://yuhuibc.blogspot.com/2008/03/aye-aye-ugliest-creature-in-world-is.html)
(Image: Yuhui's blogsite (http://yuhuibc.blogspot.com))

(All images reproduced for research purposes only under Fair Use provisions of international copyright law)

[Bartholomew]

Randomness is just another explanation for why things happen. Society likes that answer right now because it jibes well with other beliefs we have. A few hundred years in either direction down the timeline and a belief in randomness has been / will be completely different.

From my understanding, we cannot successfully create a truly random number generator, for instance. If randomness was a natural process involved with everything, wouldn't this be very easy to do?

Even Random.org, which tauts itself as being truly random, is drawing its numbers from white noise. Unpredictability does not equal random.

I'd be more inclined to argue that patterns do not exist; that they are creations of the human mind, used to facilitate communication, to enhance survival.

Still, when I see oddities like water reacting to the emotions behind social constructs, I can't help but wonder (hope?) that there is some innate, deep meaning built into everything.

[ChristineR]

Okay, but what does it mean if the water experiments were faked?

I admit, it's very hard to prove or create a truly random event. But you don't need true randomness to describe the pseudo-random processes in nature. You can just accept that until we get a heck of a lot more computing power and information, certain processes might as well be random.

If you want some real quantum mechanics, it's believed that some quantum events are in fact, random, and not driven by some underlying information we don't have. The most famous example is Schrodinger's cat, who either is or isn't killed by a vial of poison and a hammer tied to radioactive decay. I've heard that someone made an argument that radioactive decay cannot be determined by some unknown underlying factor, that it must be truly random--but I don't know what the argument is. For the time being though, these things are truly random, in a fully philosophical sense.

[Shadow_Ferret]

So a thing only exists after it has been proven to exist? Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? All the discoveries of science: they didn't exist before science proved their existence?

People didn't KNOW they existed until science proved their existence. Like atoms and quarks and black holes. No one could see them. So no, not putting horse before the cart.

Then you aren't looking for proof that a god exists, you are looking for something that fits a set of specification that you dreamed up (but have not disclosed). If Gods and Goddesses are other than what you specify, then either they do not exist, or they must be something else. That sort of reasoning is fine for religious dogmas, but it doesn't work in philosophy or science, where proof means something definite.
Proof means proof. Replicable, verifiable.

[kuwisdelu]

People didn't KNOW they existed until science proved their existence. Like atoms and quarks and black holes. No one could see them. So no, not putting horse before the cart.

Yup. Physicists are looking for Higgs boson. Why? Because we don't know if it exists or not. We have theories that predict its existence; it will be a very good explanation for mass if it does exist; but we don't know if it exists. But no *good* physicist is going to say "it exists!" until we have observed it existing.

Just because something is a good explanation for something doesn't mean it's right. However, it can be useful to people anyway. That's why people are still taught Newton's theory of gravity — it's wrong, but for most people it's a good enough explanation. Hell, we don't even know if General Relativity is really how gravity works. In fact, it's most likely incomplete. But it's a good explanation for the time being. God may or may not exist. God is a good explanation for some people, even if it may not be a correct one.

[Bartholomew]

Okay, but what does it mean if the water experiments were faked?

I admit, it's very hard to prove or create a truly random event. But you don't need true randomness to describe the pseudo-random processes in nature. You can just accept that until we get a heck of a lot more computing power and information, certain processes might as well be random.

If you want some real quantum mechanics, it's believed that some quantum events are in fact, random, and not driven by some underlying information we don't have. The most famous example is Schrodinger's cat, who either is or isn't killed by a vial of poison and a hammer tied to radioactive decay. I've heard that someone made an argument that radioactive decay cannot be determined by some unknown underlying factor, that it must be truly random--but I don't know what the argument is. For the time being though, these things are truly random, in a fully philosophical sense.

Schrödinger's cat was a thought experiment meant to disprove an argument Einstein had made about the state of particles. Eintstein's reply was, "Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independent of the act of observation."

I really don't see how that has to do with randomness.

Are you talking about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle? Because that isn't randomness either. It's a statement about the unmeasurable nature of microscopic objects.

[aruna]

S
I know the passage you're referring to. The one about, "You can say to this mountain, go throw yourself in the sea", right? I have heard some interpretations that Jesus was speaking specifically to the disciples and not the Christians in general. I've also heard others argue that it must mean that if you didn't get what you wanted, you didn't have enough faith. .

There's another interpretation. If anyone would have such faith that could move mountains they simply wouldn't be interested in getting their little personal wishes granted. Such a person would be Christlike. Such a person would not go around saying "God give me, this give me that". Little personal aims and desires would be completely obliterated in the grand experience of God. Why would one want a plastic bauble when one already has a diamond?
Faith IMO should not be cultivated for the fulfillment of personal desires. It's almost sacriledge to say "if only you had enough faith you would get this or that."


Actually, I was thinking of Luke 11:10/Matthew 7:7 and John 15:7, ("Ask and it will be given...") but that one is fine also.

The full quote is:
And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.
This is obviously a spiritual asking, seeking and knocking. Jesus is speaking about and to the unbeliever, the person who does not yet have faith, the doubter. He is not saying "ask for your wishes to be fulfilled and God will do so". He is saying "ask God to reveal his face to you", and he will. Seek God, and you shall find him. Knock on the door of faith, and it shall be opened unto you.


For me, though, the central teaching as to the "asking and giving" question is the one (paraphrased) Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and its glory, and all these things shall be given unto you. That is, seek God first. Seek the spiritual gifts, not the personal, material ones. Because they are the best, the most satisfying. Everything else is a distraction.



People didn't KNOW they existed until science proved their existence. Like atoms and quarks and black holes. No one could see them. So no, not putting horse before the cart.


Proof means proof. Replicable, verifiable.

These things were not discovered randomly. They all began with a notion, an inkling, an intuition; a faith, if you like. They did not say "atoms have not been proven to exist and so I don't believe in them." There is an openness which is often sadly lacking in those who demand proof before they can have faith.

[Ruv Draba]

Not all stories are created equal.

Before we can even consider grounds for evidence for a story, we need to consider grounds for meaning and relevance. Before we can even consider grounds for meaning and relevance we need to consider whether we trust the story-teller.

It's not closed-minded to dismiss stories told by a teller who is profoundly ignorant or self-interested, for example. Many people -- perhaps all of us -- do this at times, and call it reasonable.

Equally, it's not closed-minded to dismiss stories that aren't meaningful or relevant to us. Our sense of meaning and relevance varies from person to person, but to me a scientifically meaningful story needs clear definitions, a working model grounded in shared experience, and some corrborating evidence. And relevance relates to my moral sense of what is good. Many stories -- even those told by reputable story-tellers, can fall far short of this.

The zeal with which we accept a story changes nothing about how much others will trust a story-teller or how meaningful or relevant the story is. We may be offended to hear that our favourite stories are rejected without what we think is their due consideration, but zeal is not always a friend of tolerance or compassion.

[zornhau]

Looking back up this thread, I can see that Occam's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor) makes it very hard to come up with any evidence that would prove the existence of God to an atheist.

It's not that we shift ground or take any rhetorical stance in order to win. Rather we look for the simplest explanation, rather than leap to a conclusion:

Personal mystical experience of God = Brain chemistry misfiring.

Good fortune or effective guidance following prayer = Just good luck. If enough people roll the dice, one is bound to get all sixes. (Ignoring people who didn't have the good luck is called Survivorship Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_bias).)

Really very consistent and repeatable good fortune or prophecy, or physical powers = Psi powers experienced through a cultural filter (i.e. Just because you think Thor is sending the lightning, doesn't mean that it's not really your brain manipulating the cosmos on some quantum level).

Manifestation of Beings claiming to be Gods, Daemons or Angels = Either (i) Somebody - e.g. Aliens or the CIA - using PSI or Superior Technology to mess with us, or (ii) Proof that magical entities exist (just because it says it's "God" or "from God" doesn't prove that it is).

And the last probably illustrates the nub of the problem. Seen from Planet Earth, how would one distinguish God from another powerful entity?

[kuwisdelu]

Schrödinger's cat was a thought experiment meant to disprove an argument Einstein had made about the state of particles. Eintstein's reply was, "Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independent of the act of observation."

I really don't see how that has to do with randomness.

Are you talking about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle? Because that isn't randomness either. It's a statement about the unmeasurable nature of microscopic objects.

Eh, what QM suggests is that it isn't independent of observation. Observation collapses the wavefunction.

These things were not discovered randomly. They all began with a notion, an inkling, an intuition; a faith, if you like. They did not say "atoms have not been proven to exist and so I don't believe in them." There is an openness which is often sadly lacking in those who demand proof before they can have faith.

Err, there's a big, big difference between a notion and a faith. Scientists don't have faith that the Higgs boson exists. We think it's likely to exist because the equations predict its existence. We're trying to find it precisely because we're open to the prospect that it doesn't exist. If scientific advancements were made on faith, who would bother with experiments?

Open-mindedness is not about having faith in something. It's about being open to the possibility that something is true and that it isn't true.

There's a reason I think string theory is silly: in its almost four decades it hasn't come up with any experimentally testable predictions.

[kuwisdelu]

I don't know. I'd feel kind of cheated if life ended with a deux ex machina. Any sufficiently omnipotent supreme being is indistinguishable from a plot device for the world sheet of the universe.

[Diana Hignutt]

I got the impression that you also believe in randomness, but you call it other things.

Fair enough. We both have a lot of faith in randomness. :)

[knight_tour]

And the last probably illustrates the nub of the problem. Seen from Planet Earth, how would one distinguish God from another powerful entity?

Exactly. A sufficiently powerful type of being could either look into our thoughts or simply observe us for a period of time and then know how to appear to us in the most effective manner.

[DrZoidberg]

Faith is all the evidence you need.
That is why it's different for everyone,
and religion is flawed.
You and the relationship you have with
your God is yours and yours alone.
Believe in God or not - arguing about
is foolish.

I just felt a strong urge to butt in. I don't want to hurt anybodies feelings, but if faith alone is the only necessary requirement for belief, then all beliefs are arbitrary, which is self defeating. If we accept that, then there's no point in believing anything. Nobody should accept this, and the clever religious don't.

All beliefs, religious or otherwise are always at it's core evidence based. This is true whether or not it's a conscious realization of the believer or not. We always have to extrapolate from the known about the unknown. This is true regardless of our belief systems. The question is always; what counts as evidence and how can and should it be interpreted? There are other forms of evidence than scientific evidence.

Beliefs based on faith alone is not intrinsic to religious faith at all. When people say it, it's nothing but a symptom of intellectual laziness. And more importantly, it's never true. Never ever. Christianity stresses faith in God, but that doesn't mean belief in spite of the evidence.

Where did this bad habit come from?

[LOG]

Trying to prove the existence of god defeats the entire purpose of faith. I stay away from all of it.

[PeterL]

Proof means proof. Replicable, verifiable.


And what if someone proves that God exists, but it isn't your god?

[ChristineR]

Looking back up this thread, I can see that Occam's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) makes it very hard to come up with any evidence that would prove the existence of God to an atheist.

It's not that we shift ground or take any rhetorical stance in order to win. Rather we look for the simplest explanation, rather than leap to a conclusion:

Personal mystical experience of God = Brain chemistry misfiring.

Good fortune or effective guidance following prayer = Just good luck. If enough people roll the dice, one is bound to get all sixes. (Ignoring people who didn't have the good luck is called Survivorship Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_bias).)

Really very consistent and repeatable good fortune or prophecy, or physical powers = Psi powers experienced through a cultural filter (i.e. Just because you think Thor is sending the lightning, doesn't mean that it's not really your brain manipulating the cosmos on some quantum level).

Manifestation of Beings claiming to be Gods, Daemons or Angels = Either (i) Somebody - e.g. Aliens or the CIA - using PSI or Superior Technology to mess with us, or (ii) Proof that magical entities exist (just because it says it's "God" or "from God" doesn't prove that it is).

And the last probably illustrates the nub of the problem. Seen from Planet Earth, how would one distinguish God from another powerful entity?

That's really unfair, and not what I said. Others did say something somewhat different.

Personal mystical experience of God = Brain chemistry misfiring.

This one I would agree with, but if the personal mystical experience includes some sort of reasonable outer experience, it works. For example, if everyone who prayed about something got consistent answers, or if people from a certain sect got correct prophetic answers, or even if people from one sect got profoundly different mystical experiences that no other sect could reproduce.

Good fortune or effective guidance following prayer = Just good luck. If enough people roll the dice, one is bound to get all sixes. (Ignoring people who didn't have the good luck is called Survivorship Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_bias).)

As I said, over and over, if there were well-designed studies that showed people experienced good fortune or effective guidance from their prayer, I'd believe in God. It's simple in principal. Just get a bunch of people, have some of them pray, have the rest of them not pray, or have some of them pray for advice and have the rest of them use common sense.

Really very consistent and repeatable good fortune or prophecy, or physical powers = Psi powers experienced through a cultural filter (i.e. Just because you think Thor is sending the lightning, doesn't mean that it's not really your brain manipulating the cosmos on some quantum level).

I don't believe in psi either. However, if it did exist, you could easily prove it was God and not psi simply because atheists couldn't reproduce it. As it is, your statement can still work if you scratch out psi and write in "medicine." "Your brain manipulating the cosmos on some quantum level" is pretty vague. If Christian doctors did a better job than atheist doctors, you can bet your life I'd go to a Christian doctor.

Manifestation of Beings claiming to be Gods, Daemons or Angels = Either (i) Somebody - e.g. Aliens or the CIA - using PSI or Superior Technology to mess with us, or (ii) Proof that magical entities exist (just because it says it's "God" or "from God" doesn't prove that it is).

The problem with this one is that it doesn't happen. People who manifest and claims to be God are hoaxers, or mentally ill. Now if someone did manifest and wasn't a hoaxer, or wasn't mentally ill, and did something beyond known technology, such a person would have to be given serious thought. The question of how much proof each individual atheist would require before he converted is completely moot, because all existing examples are obvious fakes.

[zornhau]

That's really unfair, and not what I said. Others did say something somewhat different.



Sorry - not sure what I'm being unfair about. To clarify: I am adding an extra atheist perspective, following on from the discussion upthread.



(Re Brain Chemistry)
This one I would agree with, but if the personal mystical experience includes some sort of reasonable outer experience, it works. For example, if everyone who prayed about something got consistent answers, or if people from a certain sect got correct prophetic answers, or even if people from one sect got profoundly different mystical experiences that no other sect could reproduce.


That would count come under my "Really very consistent and repeatable good fortune or prophecy, or physical powers"



As I said, over and over, if there were well-designed studies that showed people experienced good fortune or effective guidance from their prayer, I'd believe in God. It's simple in principal. Just get a bunch of people, have some of them pray, have the rest of them not pray, or have some of them pray for advice and have the rest of them use common sense.


That would be evidence that prayer worked. Not how.



(re miracles as Psi)

I don't believe in psi either. However, if it did exist, you could easily prove it was God and not psi simply because atheists couldn't reproduce it. As it is, your statement can still work if you scratch out psi and write in "medicine." "Your brain manipulating the cosmos on some quantum level" is pretty vague. If Christian doctors did a better job than atheist doctors, you can bet your life I'd go to a Christian doctor.


All this would show is that "people with faith can do Psi". Perhaps belief - whether mistaken or otherwise - is what triggers the Psi phenomena.



(re Miracles and Manifestations)

The problem with this one is that it doesn't happen. People who manifest and claims to be God are hoaxers, or mentally ill. Now if someone did manifest and wasn't a hoaxer, or wasn't mentally ill, and did something beyond known technology, such a person would have to be given serious thought. The question of how much proof each individual atheist would require before he converted is completely moot, because all existing examples are obvious fakes.

Yes. Absolutely. I think religious claims to objective proof are... tosh. But this is a hypothetical thread, so I'm answering in that vein.

If somebody did manifest miracles... of an old chap with a beard appeared and started to resurrect the dead.... that still would prove only that those phenomena existed.

[kuwisdelu]

And what if someone proves that God exists, but it isn't your god?

Is someone doesn't have a god, that's kind of a pointless question.

[Shadow_Ferret]

These things were not discovered randomly. They all began with a notion, an inkling, an intuition; a faith, if you like. They did not say "atoms have not been proven to exist and so I don't believe in them." There is an openness which is often sadly lacking in those who demand proof before they can have faith.
I'm completely not understanding you. There was a "theory," a speculation, about what the make-up of matter was. Before atoms it was believed to be made up of four basic elements. A theory is just an educated guess that "this might be the way things work. I don't know, but until someone comes up with something better, we'll go with this."

Not sure what any of that has to do with faith.

And what if someone proves that God exists, but it isn't your god?

I don't have a god. So if they proved A god exists, then by default, I guess, that proven god would be all our god.

[PeterL]

Is someone doesn't have a god, that's kind of a pointless question.


Shadow Ferret has the standards and, presumably, something of a god.

[PeterL]

I don't have a god. So if they proved A god exists, then by default, I guess, that proven god would be all our god.


If it fits your specs, then it would be your god. at least.

So exactly what are your specs? Or did you list them earlier?

[Shadow_Ferret]

If it fits your specs, then it would be your god. at least.

So exactly what are your specs? Or did you list them earlier?

I have no idea what you mean by specs.

[benbradley]

Glasses?

But if God wore glasses, She wouldn't be perfect...

[Shadow_Ferret]

Men don't make passes at gods that wear glasses.

[kuwisdelu]

Shadow Ferret has the standards and, presumably, something of a god.

If it fits your specs, then it would be your god. at least.

So exactly what are your specs? Or did you list them earlier?

Meh.

This just seems kind of silly to me. God is like art. I'll know it when I see it.

[PeterL]

Meh.

This just seems kind of silly to me. God is like art. I'll know it when I see it.

I suspect that you have seen at least one God or Goddess, and apparently you failed to recognize Him when you did.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I suspect that you have seen at least one God or Goddess, and apparently you failed to recognize Him when you did.

Um... ok. I see this thread is finally breaking down into absurdity.

[kuwisdelu]

Um... ok. I see this thread is finally breaking down into absurdity.

I have to agree with Fuzzface.

[PeterL]

Um... ok. I see this thread is finally breaking down into absurdity.


Yes, that appears to be the situation. But exactly what are your standards for something to be a god?

[Shadow_Ferret]

Yes, that appears to be the situation. But exactly what are your standards for something to be a god?

Specs? Standards? I still have no idea what you mean.

It's not like I have specs or standards for worm holes, or string theory, or the Big Bang theory. I accept the theory and simply wait for the day they prove such things.

Same with a god. I accept that others believe in what is traditionally accepted as constituting a "god" and simple wait for the day they prove their existence.

[PeterL]

Specs? Standards? I still have no idea what you mean.

It's not like I have specs or standards for worm holes, or string theory, or the Big Bang theory. I accept the theory and simply wait for the day they prove such things.

Same with a god. I accept that others believe in what is traditionally accepted as constituting a "god" and simple wait for the day they prove their existence.

Hpw do you know that you have not seen god, if you haven't defined that thing?

[Ruv Draba]

As a previous poster hinted above, science and mysticism use words like ‘evidence’ differently. In science evidence can be used to disprove a theory, and the standards of evidence only ever rise. But in mysticism a failed experiment doesn’t change the theory – it just lowers the standards for evidence. Moreover, a lot of mysticism doesn’t speak about the material world at all – so how can it possibly talk about evidence in a scientific sense?

I don't know that we can set standards of evidence for something described by what it's not. Words like 'god', 'miracle' and 'magic' boil down to 'something that has no physical explanation’, which begs the question: what the heck is a scientific ‘proof’ of the inexplicable supposed to look like?

My conclusion: mysticism can’t talk to science about evidence because the word means different things. It’s meaningless to talk about a scientific ‘proof’ of ‘god’, because god is about mystifying stuff, and science is about demystifying it. That’s not to say that belief in magic and science aren’t compatible, but it does suggest that they can’t use the same language to talk about stuff. It also suggests that a lot of the time, they don’t even occupy the same domain.

[Ruv Draba]

Hpw do you know that you have not seen god, if you haven't defined that thing?In scientific discourse, the onus of definition is on the one who introduces the term, and they're accountable for the quality of the definition they use.

[ChristineR]

How do you know that you haven't seen the flying spaghetti monster, if you can't even define him?

How do you know fairies don't exist, if you can't even define them?

Can you explain why it is that God should be a special case when you ask questions like that? The closest answer I've ever gotten to that question is that lots more people take God seriously than take fairies or the FSM seriously. But a fairly large group of people do take fairies and the FSM seriously, so there needs to be a better set of criteria.

[ChristineR]

Sorry - not sure what I'm being unfair about. To clarify: I am adding an extra atheist perspective, following on from the discussion upthread.



That would count come under my "Really very consistent and repeatable good fortune or prophecy, or physical powers"



That would be evidence that prayer worked. Not how.



All this would show is that "people with faith can do Psi". Perhaps belief - whether mistaken or otherwise - is what triggers the Psi phenomena.




Yes. Absolutely. I think religious claims to objective proof are... tosh. But this is a hypothetical thread, so I'm answering in that vein.

If somebody did manifest miracles... of an old chap with a beard appeared and started to resurrect the dead.... that still would prove only that those phenomena existed.

Well, I see what you're saying, but let me take one example, that of prayer working.

Assume we have shown that people who pray have a better medical outcome in some cases. We can investigate that. For example, we could tell people falsely that they have a better prognosis than they do. (Ignore the part about that being grossly unethical--the example might be extended to cover situations that aren't unethical, like lying about your chances of winning a pretend lottery.) That would give us a clue whether positive expectations increase positive outcomes.

Or, we could investigate psi generally. We could look at people who meditate, and compare that to people who pray. Or, we could look at whether people who pray to the god of one faith do better than people who don't. We could look at atheists who are willing to give prayer a try, even if they are just going through the motions. We could ask people who prayer whether or not they expect their prayer to be answered. We could have people pray for things they really shouldn't get.

If, after all this, the data still indicated that people who pray have good things happen and people who meditate, who have a positive attitude, who have an unrealistically positive expectation, etc., etc., still indicated that prayer was working, then you have two choices.

One, you can believe that God, in some broad sense, exists, or two, you can come up with a convoluted but not impossible explanation involving some theory about psi and it only working for people who prayer when they use it.

It that case, Occam's razor points to the existence of God, not the psi explanation. If all this stuff were true, I, as an atheist, would be forced to start believing in God.

What bothered me was the implication that atheists would always pick the more convoluted explanation, simply so that they don't "have to" believe in God.

Now you could argue that God is so complicated and so strange, that He is always more complex of an explanation than psi, even if the psi chooses to behave in the most convoluted and God-like manner that any psi ever could behave in. That I would accept.

[Ruv Draba]

Well, I see what you're saying, but let me take one example, that of prayer working. [...]

you can believe that God, in some broad sense, exists, or two, you can come up with a convoluted but not impossible explanation involving some theory about psi and it only working for people who prayer when they use it.

It that case, Occam's razor points to the existence of God, not the psi explanation. If all this stuff were true, I, as an atheist, would be forced to start believing in God.I don't think that Occam's razor does any such thing.

As a scientist, I'd be interested in the extent of the phenomenon. Does it matter whom you pray to? Does it matter what you pray for? Does it matter where, when or how you pray, or who does it? Which ailments are more tractable to prayer? What other natural phenomena are affected? How does prayer plus therapy compare to prayer or therapy alone? Which therapies are more effective with prayer? Which prayers work best with which therapies?

Should prayer become a reliable therapy, it could easily be seen as an entirely physical therapy like medicine, exercise and hygeine. Since 'faith' itself is hard to evaluate, it would be very hard to show that only 'faithful' prayer works, say. So we might have atheists in churches performing religious rites just because they think it's a physical phenomenon.

Before we posited an intelligent, invisible, silent third party over the other side of some imaginary curtain we would have to do some extraordinary testing to show that the intelligence was separate from that of the supplicant's. And then we'd have to see whether it was one intelligence or many, and how long its attention-span was, and try to test motive and extent of ability and a whole bunch of things.

And even then after all that, the word 'God' wouldn't be the simplest explanation though I agree that it might be a popular one. The simplest explanation is the one that explains just the phenomena we observe, and doesn't presume on phenomena we can't.

But that's all hypothetical because nothing like that has come close to happening. We know that therapies work or don't regardless of your mystical tradition, and that mystic rites are no better at improving health outcomes than pets, gardening or moderate consumption of red wine is. And I've never seen a definition of 'faith' that could be evaluated objectively.

[benbradley]

I don't think that Occam's razor does any such thing.

As a scientist, I'd be interested in the extent of the phenomenon. Does it matter whom you pray to? Does it matter what you pray for? Does it matter where, when or how you pray, or who does it? Which ailments are more tractable to prayer? What other natural phenomena are affected? How does prayer plus therapy compare to prayer or therapy alone? Which therapies are more effective with prayer? Which prayers work best with which therapies?

Should prayer become a reliable therapy, it could easily be seen as an entirely physical therapy like medicine, exercise and hygeine. Since 'faith' itself is hard to evaluate, it would be very hard to show that only 'faithful' prayer works, say. So we might have atheists in churches performing religious rites just because they think it's a physical phenomenon.

Anyone who wants to investigate the use of faith in the modern treatment of certain conditions should investigate Alcoholics Anonymous. It's fascinating, not just that it exists, but that it get promoted so strongly in the 21st Century not just by clergy, but also by medical doctors, psychologists, judges, and probation and parole officers.

[Dommo]

That's definitely true.

In some ways it always has seemed to be that Alcoholics Anonymous is almost set up to try to trade one addiction (alcohol) for another (faith/god), in the hopes that the latter will be far less harmful.

[kuwisdelu]

That's definitely true.

In some ways it always has seemed to be that Alcoholics Anonymous is almost set up to try to trade one addiction (alcohol) for another (faith/god), in the hopes that the latter will be far less harmful.

I've thought the same thing.

[Ruv Draba]

I've mentioned this elsewhere too, though not specifically in the context of AA. It's possible to create psychosocial dependence in adults, though it's not just some religions which do this -- life coaches, some counsellors, manufacturers of hygeine, nutrition, diet and lifestyle products can all do the same.

I get very concerned when adults are sold stories that persuade them they can't be wholly responsible for their own moral welfare, to outsource conscience and self-responsibility to others. Perhaps for a few people that's exactly what's needed, but for many I think it's the opposite of what's needed.

Bringing it back to topic, I think that if we are dependent on particular stories for our own sense of self-worth and peace of mind, it becomes nigh-impossible to evaluate them independently. Instead of fitting stories to the evidence, we'll find the evidence to fit the stories. Then we can get upset if others won't see our stories as we do.

This isn't just confined to some faiths -- it applies equally to many secular products and services that we bind into our sense of identity.

[ChristineR]

There's not a ton of evidence that AA does anything more than act as a support group, and certainly not a ton of evidence that it works better than cognitive therapy techniques. There's a lot of overlap, just no religious overtones in the cognitive therapy.

AA seems to be basing it's reputation on a sort of confirmation bias. When a person is ready to stop drinking, they're likely to show up at an AA meeting, because that's what everyone tells them to do. If they like AA, they stick around, and AA counts them as a success. If they don't like AA, they leave, and stop drinking anyhow, and AA still counts them as a success.

There may not be any evidence that AA is better than secular therapy at all. The problem is that it's awfully hard to do studies on alcoholics that are or are not ready to break the addiction. You can't tell a sick person not to go to AA just because he's been assigned to your control group, and for many people, AA is the only option in their area, or the only option they can afford.

[kuwisdelu]

There's not a ton of evidence that AA does anything more than act as a support group, and certainly not a ton of evidence that it works better than cognitive therapy techniques. There's a lot of overlap, just no religious overtones in the cognitive therapy.

AA seems to be basing it's reputation on a sort of confirmation bias. When a person is ready to stop drinking, they're likely to show up at an AA meeting, because that's what everyone tells them to do. If they like AA, they stick around, and AA counts them as a success. If they don't like AA, they leave, and stop drinking anyhow, and AA still counts them as a success.

There may not be any evidence that AA is better than secular therapy at all. The problem is that it's awfully hard to do studies on alcoholics that are or are not ready to break the addiction. You can't tell a sick person not to go to AA just because he's been assigned to your control group, and for many people, AA is the only option in their area, or the only option they can afford.

Eh, besides, it's also possible to break an addiction without joining any kind of group at all, and without actually giving up whatever you were addicted to.

That's my own biggest problem with such things. I refuse to admit I am powerless over something I should have power over — myself. And I refuse to turn my will over to anyone or anything. I believe I am responsible for my own actions, not some divine being.

[benbradley]

There's not a ton of evidence that AA does anything more than act as a support group, and certainly not a ton of evidence that it works better than cognitive therapy techniques. There's a lot of overlap, just no religious overtones in the cognitive therapy.

AA seems to be basing it's reputation on a sort of confirmation bias. When a person is ready to stop drinking, they're likely to show up at an AA meeting, because that's what everyone tells them to do. If they like AA, they stick around, and AA counts them as a success. If they don't like AA, they leave, and stop drinking anyhow, and AA still counts them as a success.
Actually, not drinking without attending AA is called being a "dry drunk." Attending AA reminds one that God keeps one sober, that one is sober by the Grace of God (grace being an unmerited gift - one doesn't deserve it, but God gives it anyway).
There may not be any evidence that AA is better than secular therapy at all. The problem is that it's awfully hard to do studies on alcoholics that are or are not ready to break the addiction. You can't tell a sick person not to go to AA just because he's been assigned to your control group, and for many people, AA is the only option in their area, or the only option they can afford.
It's definitely not the only option they can afford, but with pamphlets like this one telling members to have officials send people to AA at every step along the way, AA may be the only option they hear about:
http://aa.org/lang/en/en_pdfs/mg-05_coopwithcourt.pdf

While AA has its differences with Christianity (AA members don't "fear God" the way many Christians do), it originated with a Christian group and borrows much more than it wants to admit from Christianity.

But AA is all about God (and believing in God, and pretending to believe in God - they say "pray, even if you don't believe") even moreso than about not drinking. Only the first step mentions alcohol, but half of the remaining 11 steps directly or indirectly mention God.

I have AA to thank for the years I believed in God. Part of my getting out of AA was analyzing its belief system and looking for ... evidence of God, or the supernatural in any form. After a couple years in AA I suspected my beliefs (almost exclusively things I had absorbed from AA, such "an alcoholic cannot stop drinking by himself, only God can help, thus as an alcoholic my sobriety is evidence for the existence of God"), weren't fully based in reality, so I started testing them.

(To be continued...)

[Dommo]

That's a similar experience that a friend of mine had.

He did a 12 step program with AA, and for a while he was extremely religious, then one day he just realized that in the end he was the only one who could change anything. He could appeal all he wanted to God, but if he didn't will himself not to drink, he would have no one to blame but himself.

It was like the weirdest thing. He's been sober for a few years, but it was literally like an overnight change in the way he approached life.

[DrZoidberg]

That's a similar experience that a friend of mine had.

He did a 12 step program with AA, and for a while he was extremely religious, then one day he just realized that in the end he was the only one who could change anything. He could appeal all he wanted to God, but if he didn't will himself not to drink, he would have no one to blame but himself.

It was like the weirdest thing. He's been sober for a few years, but it was literally like an overnight change in the way he approached life.

In AA it's not God, it's "higher power". It's nature is left completely open. In psychoanalysis it's the "big other", or in Freudian terms it's the "super ego". The mechanic of AA is to introduce these artificially. A friend who's a psychoanalyst and who has worked with addicts explained the idea behind AA, and why it works. It works for people with a weak super ego. Ie, lacking in discipline, or people who are bad at telling themselves what to do and sticking with it. People are addicts for different reasons. 12 stepping won't work for all addicts.

Originally when AA was founded the explicit goal was to help addicts by also "saving" them with God. But they stumbled on a secret recipe that can help people, God or not. That's why it is so popular. In Sweden people are rarely religious. So over here "higher power" is most often interpreted as the addict simply picking a fetish, and treating it with due reverence. In a friends DAA group there's a guy who's higher power is his aquarium fishes. It works for him.

I have a few strongly atheistic friends who most likely would have been dead by now if it wasn't for DAA. Their atheism is left quite intact in spite of bowing to a higher power.

[aruna]

Same with a god. I accept that others believe in what is traditionally accepted as constituting a "god" and simple wait for the day they prove their existence.



The trouble with asking for proof is that you are require the "product" to prove its "producer". How can that ever be? Man's intelligence is a mere speck in the vastness of all there is and ever was. The tiniest, microscopic speck. Do you really believe that man's intelligence could ever even understand an iota of what caused all this, if there is such a cause?

And if we are looking for evidence, we are looking for it in the wrong place, by the wrong means.

In a discussion such as this the initial definition of "god" or "God" first has to be agreed on. otherwise we are talking at cross purposes. That hasn't happened, and probably won't, since everyone has their own god-concept or straw man. So, for starters, I will state my case:
I don't believe in SF's strawman god, nor in Gods and Goddesses (or, if they do exist, they are not important).

I do believe in formless Intelligence, or energy, which permeates all of this universe. I believe that this is what people of all religions worship as "God".

My "religion" if it can be called such, is Advaita (http://www.indopedia.org/Advaita_Vedanta.html) Vedanta (non-duality), which has been described as that place where science and spirituality meet.
Advaita and Science

According to some followers of Advaita, it may very well be a place where the scientific world intersects with the spiritual world. They point to the relationships between mass, frequency, and energy that 20th century physics has established and the Advaitic 'Unity of the Universe' as the common ground. They feel that these relationships, formalized as equations by Planck and Einstein, suggest that the whole mesh of the Universe blend into a One that exhibits itself as many (namely, mass, energy, wave etc), and that this follows Advaita's view that everything is but the manifestation of an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent "One". They also connect the De Broglie waves of modern physics to Aum in Hindu philosophy. Conversely, scientist Erwin Schrödinger was also a Vedantist and claimed to have been inspired by it in his contributions to quantum mechanics. Fritjof Capra's book, The Tao of Physics, is one among several that pursue this viewpoint as it investigates the relationship between modern, particularly quantum, physics and the core philosophies of various Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism (http://www.thaiexotictreasures.com/taoism.html).



I know for a fact that many physicists of today are working on the correlation between advaita and quantum physics. One of them, and I know this for a fact, was the late German atom physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker, as well as the two mentioned in the quote above.

I think this is the direction that "scientific proof of God" is going to go.

Like most atheists, I don't believe in anything on faith alone. I do believe in that energy because I can observe it myself. It's here and now, in me (and you), and can be experienced.

As for prayer: people are far too much concerened with "if prayer works". Of course it does; but not in the sense the prayers are granted, but in that it helps the one who prays. Prayer links the one who prays back to the core of his or her being. In times of crises it becomes an anchor, thus keeping people saner and healthier than if they had no anchor, but were at the mercy only of their own wild thoughts and fears.



Err, there's a big, big difference between a notion and a faith. Scientists don't have faith that the Higgs boson exists. We think it's likely to exist because the equations predict its existence. We're trying to find it precisely because we're open to the prospect that it doesn't exist. If scientific advancements were made on faith, who would bother with experiments?

Open-mindedness is not about having faith in something. It's about being open to the possibility that something is true and that it isn't true.
.

Observation in the sense described above, too, is more than faith. If that energy -- which physics agree does exist -- is in me then I can know it. And I do.

[zornhau]

re AA.
Obviously having faith can give you psychological powers (I tell my students "trust the system", and that makes them fight with more confidence). But that's not evidence for anything external.

re Prayer triggered miracles and Occams' Razor
I find Psi a less complex explanation that one God. Individual humans wielding super powers to a variety of ends fits the chaotic world we live in far better than a single power pursuing its own policy.

If miracles did fit a coherant policy, that would point to a single entity at work. Possible candidates would include: Collective Unconsciousness, Manna-feeding Alien Demons, a non-unique God with delusions of grandeur, a single God.

[Ruv Draba]

There's plenty of claim that prayer calms people and helps their sanity -- and surely for some people it does.

But so too do many secular activities like meditation, psychotherapy, exercise, long strolls and laughter with friends. If we want to use 'evidence' in the physical sense then we must compare like with like. Moreover, we'd be foolish to ignore just how many people under psychiatric therapy have especially strong beliefs in magic and prayer. One can't claim that it's all roses for people who pray.

It's also important that we factor in what people are worried about. If religion increases guilt and anxiety by battering the faithful's self-esteem and undermining their security with tales of curses, evil spirits, apocalypses and unpleasant afterlives then it's hardly fair to credit prayer with allaying those religion-created fears.

[Diana Hignutt]

Earlier, I had suggested that the fact that no only do the sun and moon appear the same size to us here on planet Earth, but that eclipses occur could possibly be evidence of God, or an intellegent creator. One poster responded that randomness could easily explain this phenomena.

I submit that randomness is a less convincing explanation than an intelligent creator. Higher states of order which arise out of non-biological, non-evolutionary processes seem better explained by a divine explanation than yet another nod to randomness. Such consistant appeals to randomness almost elevate randomness to a faith-based explanation no better than god. "God hides in random numbers."

And please, no one go all appeal to authority and quote Eisntein's God playing dice quote.

[kuwisdelu]

*drops in to note that chaos and randomness are completely different things*

Chaos isn't random; it's merely unpredictable but is still highly deterministic.

[Diana Hignutt]

*drops in to note that chaos and randomness are completely different things*

Chaos isn't random; it's merely unpredictable but is still highly deterministic.

Drops in to point out that I changed my post and rendered this post meaningless. :)

[Priene]

Earlier, I had suggested that the fact that no only do the sun and moon appear the same size to us here on planet Earth, but that eclipses occur could possibly be evidence of God, or an intellegent creator. One poster responded that randomness could easily explain this phenomena.

I submit that randomness is a less convincing explanation than an intelligent creator. Higher states of order which arise out of non-biological, non-evolutionary processes seem better explained by a divine explanation than yet another nod to randomness. Such consistant appeals to randomness almost elevate randomness to a faith-based explanation no better than god. "God hides in random numbers."


It's a good example of a spurious correlation. There is a huge set of possible coincidences in astronomy that do not happen. For instance, a chance line up of stars could produce a constellation that spells out "God exists". Or Jesus on the cross. There aren't. The ecliptic could line up exactly with the galactic equator. It doesn't. When one does, as with the moon and the sun, though the phenomenon is not perfect (annular eclipses) nor permanent (the moon is getting further from the sun), it's cited as convoluted evidence for something completely unrelated (a deity - if one existed, they'd be perfectly capable of providing unmistakeable evidence of their existence).

[kuwisdelu]

Drops in to point out that I changed my post and rendered this post meaningless. :)

Oh, you sneaky harlot!

[Shadow_Ferret]

Hpw do you know that you have not seen god, if you haven't defined that thing?
I don't. But that's God's fault for not introducing himself then, isn't it?
How do you know that you haven't seen the flying spaghetti monster, if you can't even define him?

How do you know fairies don't exist, if you can't even define them?


Both of those are very well defined. I'm very sure I'd recognize a fairy dancing on my lawn or be able to point out a flying spaghetti monster.

And I've seen plenty of pictures of Jesus, so I think I'd be able to recognize him, too, if he came to my door asking for a glass of water.

[ChristineR]

Earlier, I had suggested that the fact that no only do the sun and moon appear the same size to us here on planet Earth, but that eclipses occur could possibly be evidence of God, or an intellegent creator. One poster responded that randomness could easily explain this phenomena.

I submit that randomness is a less convincing explanation than an intelligent creator. Higher states of order which arise out of non-biological, non-evolutionary processes seem better explained by a divine explanation than yet another nod to randomness. Such consistant appeals to randomness almost elevate randomness to a faith-based explanation no better than god. "God hides in random numbers."

And please, no one go all appeal to authority and quote Eisntein's God playing dice quote.

Okay, but then you have to have a God (or other intelligent creator--let's just call it "God") which is itself a result of either random, or non-random processes.

If something as complex as God is a result of random processes, then surely something as simple as the sun and moon being roughly the same size (as viewed from earth) could be the result of a random process. After all, we know many planets have moons that don't fit this pattern.

If God is not a result of random processes, then what is the non-random process that created God? Why can't that same process be the one that sized the moon?

If God is a special case--how so? Why is it that God can be special, but something relatively simple like our moon, has to be designed?

[kuwisdelu]

Speaking as a statistician and former physics major... this just doesn't make much sense to me.

I don't get how an eclipse or the sun and moon appearing the same size from Earth have much of anything to do with God.

[Diana Hignutt]

Okay, but then you have to have a God (or other intelligent creator--let's just call it "God") which is itself a result of either random, or non-random processes.

If something as complex as God is a result of random processes, then surely something as simple as the sun and moon being roughly the same size (as viewed from earth) could be the result of a random process. After all, we know many planets have moons that don't fit this pattern.

If God is not a result of random processes, then what is the non-random process that created God? Why can't that same process be the one that sized the moon?

If God is a special case--how so? Why is it that God can be special, but something relatively simple like our moon, has to be designed?

Many mystical traditions, but most notably Buddhism and the Western Mystical Tradition, describe God as arising out of the necessity of set theory from nothingness. I.E. there was nothingness, then awareness of the nothingness, and everything moved on from that point.

[Diana Hignutt]

Speaking as a statistician and former physics major... this just doesn't make much sense to me.

I don't get how an eclipse or the sun and moon appearing the same size from Earth have much of anything to do with God.

See, people who believe in God, would say that God made that stuff happen for a reason.

[ChristineR]

Many mystical traditions, but most notably Buddhism and the Western Mystical Tradition, describe God as arising out of the necessity of set theory from nothingness. I.E. there was nothingness, then awareness of the nothingness, and everything moved on from that point.

Why is awareness more likely to arise out of nothingness, than say, an matter/anti-matter pair?

I seeing a strong prejudice towards humans here. That is, it's easier for a aware (and hence human-like) creature to arise out of nothingness than other objects. In the case of matter/anti-matter pairs, we know that they do, indeed arise out of nothingness, so there's not much speculation there.

I see awareness as being a product of a complicated brain. No one seems to think that complex brains arise out of nothingness.

Now I know that some mystical theories believe that God is necessary, but I've never been able to wrap my mind around them myself. I'd be more accepting of a theory that has matter arising out of necessity and then life arising eventually (sort of the same way that the monkeys eventually write Shakespeare) and awareness arising from life, because life tends towards complexity. Which is cool, but I guess we haven't evolved into God yet, and God would be the endpoint--not the beginning.

[PeterL]

I don't. But that's God's fault for not introducing himself then, isn't it?


No, you're the one who's is missing something. I could toss in a hackneyed adage here, but that would be piling on.

[Diana Hignutt]

I guess we haven't evolved into God yet, and God would be the endpoint--not the beginning.

To mystics, god is both.

More broadly, and this isn't directed at you alone, this discussion is rife with strawmen, but perhaps that is the only possible outcome as atheists convert the mystical terminology theists use into scientific terminology.

Peace.

[AMCrenshaw]

Any theists of the via negativa want to weigh in?

A good quote from an old friend Dan Berrigan (paraphrased): What does an atheist leave behind? The mystery of incarnation and the incarnation of mystery."




AMC

[Ruv Draba]

More broadly, and this isn't directed at you alone, this discussion is rife with strawmen, but perhaps that is the only possible outcome as atheists convert the mystical terminology theists use into scientific terminology.In fairness Diana, some atheists are mystics and some like me are quite skeptical.

Also in fairness, mystics misappropriate scientific jargon for their own rhetorical purposes far more than scientists care to talk about mystical concepts as areas of scientific study. Deepak Chopra's numerous rhetorical misappropriations of science (http://www.skepdic.com/chopra.html) would be an egregious and current example, but they're commonplace in theism -- as in the US example of Intelligent Design. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design)

I can happily ignore mysticism until it purports to give me moral instruction or make predictions about the physical world, and many atheists of a similar stripe feel the same. But when a mystical concept like 'god' is linked to science via a term like 'evidence' there will naturally be discussion as to what the first means and who gets to decide what the second should be. Naturally, skeptical sorts will take an interest.

In scientific discourse, the tradition is that the proposer must come up with unambiguous definitions grounded in physical reality, and the audience gets to set the standards for evidence. In my experience of mystical discourse it's almost the reverse: terms are ill-defined or based on subjective experience and the listener is challenged to explain what they mean, while the speaker gets to claim the standards for evidence. :)

No wonder then if it's hard to find common ground. :D

[Diana Hignutt]

In fairness Diana, some atheists are mystics and some like me are quite skeptical.

Also in fairness, mystics misappropriate scientific jargon for their own rhetorical purposes far more than scientists care to talk about mystical concepts as areas of scientific study. Deepak Chopra's numerous rhetorical misappropriations of science (http://www.skepdic.com/chopra.html) would be an egregious and current example.

I can happily ignore mysticism until it purports to give me moral instruction or make predictions about the physical world, and many atheists of a similar stripe feel the same. But when a mystical concept like 'god' is linked to science via a term like 'evidence' there will naturally be discussion as to what the first means and who gets to decide what the second should be. Naturally, skeptical sorts will take an interest.

I respectfully suggest that Deepak Chopra is less a mystic than a salesman.

Skepticism is the most important tool for the mystic, otherwise, religions get started. :)

I didn't mean to only accuse atheists of using strawmen, it works both ways when you straddle the chasm between science and mysticism, and attempt to use the other's terminology. Some seems willful, other perhaps from an improper understanding of the terms.

[Ruv Draba]

I respectfully suggest that Deepak Chopra is less a mystic than a salesman.I respectfully utterly agree with you. :D

I didn't mean to only accuse atheists of using strawmen, it works both ways when you straddle the chasm between science and mysticism, and attempt to use the other's terminology. Some seems willful, other perhaps from an improper understanding of the terms.I think it's really easy to build rhetorical arguments to demolish them. As an atheist I get quite irate when door-knocking theists tell me what I must think and why I'm wrong. So, my sympathies if you experience that too.

My problem with mysticism is that I don't actually know what mystics think because I can't understand the words. I have no working understanding of 'god' and no mystic has ever been able to explain it in terms that I recognise. I have a partial understanding of 'faith' -- but only in a physical sense (as in 'trading in good faith'). I have no idea how mystical faith differs from (say) a deluded fantasy and how one can tell them apart. When we move into terms like 'afterlife' and so on I'm already lost. I understand that people can make up stories with made-up nouns like 'Borrible', but what I don't understand is why people should treat stories with made-up nouns as real or even possibly real until the made-up nouns can somehow be demonstrated independently.

I suspect that I'm not alone that when I hear mystical dogma, I hear either nonsense or fairytales. It may seem willful, but perhaps my brain is simply wired differently.

[wizzy812]

I see too much intelligence in nature. How does a new born spider know it can catch food by spinning a very intricate web? how does it even know there is bugs to catch? How does it know how to build an intricate web? It isn't even the size of a pea and I know that no human with a brain only the size of a pea would have the intelligence to build an intricate fish net and catch food? A toddler is way more intelligent than any spider and yet no toddler in the world would even know how to draw a web let alone build one!!!

[Diana Hignutt]

I suspect that I'm not alone that when I hear mystical dogma, I hear either nonsense or fairytales. It may seem willful, but perhaps my brain is simply wired differently.

Pure mysticism knows no dogma...the experience can not even be properly put into words. Dogma comes from objectifying the subjective nature of mind and its relationship to the universe.

Cheers!

[kuwisdelu]

See, people who believe in God, would say that God made that stuff happen for a reason.

That just doesn't make much sense to me. Why bother with an explanation like God when it's not necessary?

No, you're the one who's is missing something. I could toss in a hackneyed adage here, but that would be piling on.

Err, that doesn't make any sense.

[wizzy812]

Another thing is even very simple things can't be created by nature alone. How then does even the simplest life form evolve?

For example: All hardened steal is, is carbon and iron fused together and heated. Both elements are very common elements. Such a simple thing to make. Yet you will never see it, ever, naturally formed by nature!!! Is it easier for all the many amino acids and protiens necesary for the simplest form of life (an ameba) to naturally build a nucleous and mitochondria and endo-plasmic reticulum (poop shute), necesary organs, for life?

[Shadow_Ferret]

No, you're the one who's is missing something. I could toss in a hackneyed adage here, but that would be piling on.

How is "not making sense" piling on?

I see too much intelligence in nature. How does a new born spider know it can catch food by spinning a very intricate web? how does it even know there is bugs to catch? How does it know how to build an intricate web? It isn't even the size of a pea and I know that no human with a brain only the size of a pea would have the intelligence to build an intricate fish net and catch food? A toddler is way more intelligent than any spider and yet no toddler in the world would even know how to draw a web let alone build one!!!

Well, whereas you see a creator, I see "instinct" and "heredity," ingrained traits passed on generation to generation.

[wizzy812]

How is "not making sense" piling on?



Well, whereas you see a creator, I see "instinct" and "heredity," ingrained traits passed on generation to generation.

Of course it's instinct and heredity!!! There's no question about that!!! But how did those extremely simple minded creatures developed such intelligent instincts to pass on to future generations. that I don't see is possible.

[Shadow_Ferret]

Of course it's instinct and heredity!!! There's no question about that!!! But how did those extremely simple minded creatures developed such intelligent instincts to pass on to future generations. that I don't see is possible.

Evolution. Darwin has a theory of natural selection. Those with the trait survived and passed it on to the next generation.

[Ruv Draba]

I see too much intelligence in nature. How does a new born spider know it can catch food by spinning a very intricate web?

A lot of problems that humans solve by reasoning and inference seem to be solved in nature by tropisms and simple rules. When humans try to reproduce insect-like behaviour with machinery it turns out that they don't need to know a lot. This is a fascinating area of investigation that spans disciplines like cognition and robotics, and produces areas like ant robotics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_robotics) and robot cockroaches (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10375969-1.html).

[wizzy812]

Evolution. Darwin has a theory of natural selection. Those with the trait survived and passed it on to the next generation.

I heard that Darwin eventually rejected the evolution theory. I heard the eye of a peacock feather convinced him evolution wasn't possible.

What I'm guessing you to beleive is that begining with the simplest life form genetics formed into more complicated life forms and because these life forms were more complicated they survived and produced more and more complicated liffe forms that eventually developed very intelligent instincts to future generations.

I tell you making honey out of nector is very smart!!!

[Shadow_Ferret]

I heard that Darwin eventually rejected the evolution theory.

Evolution isn't a theory. Evolution is a fact. Figuring out how evolution works is the theory part.

[Ruv Draba]

Evolution. Darwin has a theory of natural selection. Those with the trait survived and passed it on to the next generation.It's very hard to gain a strong intuition of how genes can innovate greater complexity without experimentation. The way that humans create new design is very different to the way it's done genetically. We tend to design by taking existing components, adapting them and assembling them. But genetic innovation is happy to create bumps and holes and changes in materials and fine-tune them until they become something entirely new -- and for every remarkable success there are countless failures and scads of mediocre intermediaries. It does look marvellous in hindsight and can be very hard to believe because it's hard to understand how the probabilities work.

Unfortunately for theistic arguments, science doesn't take ignorance as evidence. The only evidence we have is stuff we can reproduce. So even if we can't understand evolution or don't like it, by itself that's not evidence for another mechanism.

[kuwisdelu]

It's very hard to gain a strong intuition of how genes can innovate greater complexity without experimentation. The way that humans create new design is very different to the way it's done genetically. We tend to design by taking existing components, adapting them and assembling them. But genetic innovation is happy to create bumps and holes and changes in materials and fine-tune them until they become something entirely new -- and for every remarkable success there are countless failures and scads of mediocre intermediaries. It does look marvellous in hindsight and can be very hard to believe because it's hard to understand how the probabilities work.


Human discovery does that, too, actually. Many of our "innovations" have happened by complete accident. E.g., the discovery of penicillin.

[Ruv Draba]

For people interested in how random genetic changes can produce smarter and smarter behaviour, here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp9kzoAxsA4) is the demonstration of an experiment in the behaviour of software 'fish', in which each fish has a simple 'brain' that starts off dumb. The brains of later fish mutate slightly, and the better fish survive longer to reproduce. The same sort of thing can occur in physical characteristics too. This area is known as genetic algorithms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm), and was a related area to my research degree. It's pretty nifty.

[Ruv Draba]

Human discovery does that, too, actually. Many of our "innovations" have happened by complete accident. E.g., the discovery of penicillin.Yes, but the accidents like the discovery of penicillin or radiation are often not part of programmed randomness as we find in evolution.

They do, in some parts of science, do something like genetic innovation. In chemistry for instance, they will often undertake repeated experiments with just minor changes in reagents -- substituting like for like, for instance. In biology there was an experiment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDb27ZP9zEE&feature=related) that ran for twenty-five years in which a wild canine (http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/14722) (the silver fox) was artificially 'evolved' through deliberate breeding to become 'tame'.

But for many scientific purposes, the experimental cycle is so long and the number of possible experiments so large that 'random' changes to experiments are seldom used. However, in nature where the population of experiments is ridiculously large, randomness is easy to come by, time-frames are unthinkably big and grant-funds don't dry up if you fail, it's a very effective method for innovation. :)

[wizzy812]

Evolution isn't a theory. Evolution is a fact. Figuring out how evolution works is the theory part.

Of course evolution is a fact. Forgive me for implying otherwise. But I don't see how it is possible at all for evolution to begin with out a creator to start it. Or how to make it such that it evovles intelligently. Even if there were a hundred trillion universes I don't beleive it is possible for even for the simplest form of life to begin.

It's like steel. It will never occur naturally. It's impossible. Yet it only takes two elements to exist. NOt a whole bunch of protiens and amino acids. Steel is a millions times simpler than an ameoba.

[kuwisdelu]

Wait.... so does being able to make steel make us gods?

That would be awesome.

[Ruv Draba]

Even if there were a hundred trillion universes I don't beleive it is possible for even for the simplest form of life to begin.It's fair to be skeptical about such stuff, but such skepticism doesn't support a preferred dogma as an alternative answer, and many scientists would argue that 'magic' is no answer at all.

The topic of how life began is called abiogenesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis) meaning 'life from nonlife'. It has many competing theories, and some are quite fascinating. There isn't yet a complete working model for how abiogenesis might occur, but there are some very promising partial models with some supporting evidence, and plenty of enthusiastic research.

To my atheistic mind the origin of life is quite separate to the matter of how to live our lives. I don't really understand stories that have a creator who creates everything (the logic of that doesn't take hold in my head) but even confining it to something I can understand (like someone causing life to form on earth), I don't see that as a basis for worship -- perhaps a bit of reverence, but not abject moral servitude.

So my scientific curiosity is vaguely piqued by the origin of life, but the answer doesn't have a big bearing on my sense of conscience. I'm abiogenetically agnostic, but utterly atheist.

[AMCrenshaw]

I respectfully utterly agree with you. :D

I think it's really easy to build rhetorical arguments to demolish them. As an atheist I get quite irate when door-knocking theists tell me what I must think and why I'm wrong. So, my sympathies if you experience that too.

My problem with mysticism is that I don't actually know what mystics think because I can't understand the words. I have no working understanding of 'god' and no mystic has ever been able to explain it in terms that I recognise. I have a partial understanding of 'faith' -- but only in a physical sense (as in 'trading in good faith'). I have no idea how mystical faith differs from (say) a deluded fantasy and how one can tell them apart. When we move into terms like 'afterlife' and so on I'm already lost. I understand that people can make up stories with made-up nouns like 'Borrible', but what I don't understand is why people should treat stories with made-up nouns as real or even possibly real until the made-up nouns can somehow be demonstrated independently.

I suspect that I'm not alone that when I hear mystical dogma, I hear either nonsense or fairytales. It may seem willful, but perhaps my brain is simply wired differently.

And if mysticism doesn't have to do with God, faith, and the afterlife?


AMC

[benbradley]

In AA it's not God, it's "higher power". It's nature is left completely open.
Hmm. In looking at the 12 steps where I posted them here:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2539281#post2539281
The word God appears four times in those steps, and the capitalized pronoun Him is used twice.

But maybe you're right. Here's Bill Wilson from the Third Step of the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 27:
"This is only one man's opinion based on his own experience, of course. I must quickly assure you that A.A.'s tread innumerable paths in their quest for faith. If you don't care for the one I've suggested, you'll be sure to discover one that suits if only you look and listen. Many a man like you has begun to solve the problem by the method of substitution. You can, if you wish, make A.A., itself your 'higher power.' Here's a very large group of people who have solved their alcohol problem. In this respect they are certainly a power greater than you, who have not even come close to a solution. Surely you can have faith in them. Even this minimum of faith will be enough. You will find many members who have crossed the threshold just this way.But then there's this from the same book, page 96:
To certain newcomers and to those one-time agnostics who still cling to the A.A. group as their higher power, claims for the power of prayer may, despite all the logic and experience in proof of it, still be unconvincing or quite objectionable. Those of us who once felt this way can certainly understand and sympathize. We well remember how something deep inside us kept rebelling against the idea of bowing before any God.Hmm, this looks like a bait-and-switch, and the "A.A. group as their higher power" thing was just a "starter God." Apparently when you get to the 11th step, the AA "higher power" really is God.
In psychoanalysis it's the "big other", or in Freudian terms it's the "super ego". The mechanic of AA is to introduce these artificially. A friend who's a psychoanalyst and who has worked with addicts explained the idea behind AA, and why it works. It works for people with a weak super ego. Ie, lacking in discipline, or people who are bad at telling themselves what to do and sticking with it. People are addicts for different reasons. 12 stepping won't work for all addicts.
Geez. Does Alcoholics Anonymous in Sweden allow addicts to talk about their drug addiction in meetings? Back when I was going to AA meetings they started reading this Singleness Of Purpose Statement (http://books.google.com/books?id=MoPSznI8cqEC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=%22singleness+of+purpose+statement&source=bl&ots=zf5-47Qf5-&sig=j27pyd3sfxUoC_auSq6zHMGIhmo&hl=en&ei=gz-QS6axBsKtlAfT7IT8AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22singleness%20of%20purpose%20statement&f=false) at every meeting, and interrupted anyone who started talking about drugs or drug addiction.

Narcotics Anonymous has been around decades earlier, but but the mix of "alcohlics" and "addicts" became more prevalent as the alcohol-and-drug treatment center industry grew in the US in the 1970's and 1980's, and all those "pure alcoholics" in AA meetings were getting pissed at treatment centers dumping people into any old 12-step fellowship willy-nilly with no regard to their alcoholic/addict self-identification.
Originally when AA was founded the explicit goal was to help addicts by also "saving" them with God. But they stumbled on a secret recipe that can help people, God or not.
So when and how exactly did that change?
That's why it is so popular.
That's interesting. Maybe you can tell us why Scientology is so popular? Scientology doesn't even have the big advantage I posted earlier that AA has, judges sending DUI offendors to them.
In Sweden people are rarely religious. So over here "higher power" is most often interpreted as the addict simply picking a fetish, and treating it with due reverence. In a friends DAA group there's a guy who's higher power is his aquarium fishes. It works for him.
Maybe thats for Sweden, but an object ("nature" or "a doorknob" are classics AA examples) is only a starter God in US AA, as I indicate from the 12&12 quotes above.

I've never heard the word fetish used to describe it - perhaps in Sweden that word means something less "specific" than in the USA. Looking it up, I see it does indeed have a more general meaning (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fetish) but as a citizen of the oversexualized USA, I've never heard fetish used outside the sexual meaning of definition 1c.
I have a few strongly atheistic friends who most likely would have been dead by now if it wasn't for DAA. Their atheism is left quite intact in spite of bowing to a higher power.
How would they have been dead?

I knew several people in AA who committed suicide. I'm convinced most wouldn't have done so had they not been in AA.

Maybe AA is "watered down" in Sweden, which would make sense - if open agnosticism and atheism are as common as you say there, the original USA version of AA would get a poor reception there. Almost certainly, that would explain any change or watering down from the original USA version.

You may be interested in looking at these webpages concerning AA:
http://orange-papers.org
http://peele.net

There's also http://morerevealed.com by author Ken Ragge, but it's not up at the moment. There's a subpage on it, originally an older website, that currently works:
http://www.morerevealed.com/aadep/

[ChristineR]

To mystics, god is both.

More broadly, and this isn't directed at you alone, this discussion is rife with strawmen, but perhaps that is the only possible outcome as atheists convert the mystical terminology theists use into scientific terminology.

Peace.

What was the strawman? Suggesting that it is less likely that intelligence came spontaneously into existence out of nothingness than that matter came into existence out of nothingness and evolved?

Are you saying that intelligence doesn't come spontaneously into existence out of nothing? Really, I'm completely lost. It's not fair to throw terms like "strawman" at someone and not explain yourself. I would never, ever, knowingly use a strawman argument.

[ChristineR]

Hmm. In looking at the 12 steps where I posted them here:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2539281#post2539281
The word God appears four times in those steps, and the capitalized pronoun Him is used twice.

But maybe you're right. Here's Bill Wilson from the Third Step of the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 27:
But then there's this from the same book, page 96:
Hmm, this looks like a bait-and-switch, and the "A.A. group as their higher power" thing was just a "starter God." Apparently when you get to the 11th step, the AA "higher power" really is God.

Geez. Does Alcoholics Anonymous in Sweden allow addicts to talk about their drug addiction in meetings? Back when I was going to AA meetings they started reading this Singleness Of Purpose Statement (http://books.google.com/books?id=MoPSznI8cqEC&pg=PA155&lpg=PA155&dq=%22singleness+of+purpose+statement&source=bl&ots=zf5-47Qf5-&sig=j27pyd3sfxUoC_auSq6zHMGIhmo&hl=en&ei=gz-QS6axBsKtlAfT7IT8AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22singleness%20of%20purpose%20statement&f=false) at every meeting, and interrupted anyone who started talking about drugs or drug addiction.

Narcotics Anonymous has been around decades earlier, but but the mix of "alcohlics" and "addicts" became more prevalent as the alcohol-and-drug treatment center industry grew in the US in the 1970's and 1980's, and all those "pure alcoholics" in AA meetings were getting pissed at treatment centers dumping people into any old 12-step fellowship willy-nilly with no regard to their alcoholic/addict self-identification.

So when and how exactly did that change?

That's interesting. Maybe you can tell us why Scientology is so popular? Scientology doesn't even have the big advantage I posted earlier that AA has, judges sending DUI offendors to them.

Maybe thats for Sweden, but an object ("nature" or "a doorknob" are classics AA examples) is only a starter God in US AA, as I indicate from the 12&12 quotes above.

I've never heard the word fetish used to describe it - perhaps in Sweden that word means something less "specific" than in the USA. Looking it up, I see it does indeed have a more general meaning (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fetish) but as a citizen of the oversexualized USA, I've never heard fetish used outside the sexual meaning of definition 1c.

How would they have been dead?

I knew several people in AA who committed suicide. I'm convinced most wouldn't have done so had they not been in AA.

Maybe AA is "watered down" in Sweden, which would make sense - if open agnosticism and atheism are as common as you say there, the original USA version of AA would get a poor reception there. Almost certainly, that would explain any change or watering down from the original USA version.

You may be interested in looking at these webpages concerning AA:
http://orange-papers.org
http://peele.net

There's also http://morerevealed.com by author Ken Ragge, but it's not up at the moment. There's a subpage on it, originally an older website, that currently works:
http://www.morerevealed.com/aadep/

The Orange pages are really extreme and hard to sort through. There used to be a page going up and down every study ever done of AA, and there are surprisingly few. All the ones that conclude it works, fail to compare it to just plain old support groups, or even just deciding to quit on your own. I'll never find it again, if it exists.

Anyhow, it's clear that surrounding yourself with people who will tell you not to drink and take your phone calls in the middle of the night, is helpful for some people. I'm just not convinced that the religious, or quasi-religious stuff does anything. I guess it might be good for some people psychologically, but it's clearly been very bad for any number of secular people, including some who were ordered to go into AA.

[benbradley]

...
I do believe in formless Intelligence, or energy, which permeates all of this universe. I believe that this is what people of all religions worship as "God".

My "religion" if it can be called such, is Advaita (http://www.indopedia.org/Advaita_Vedanta.html) Vedanta (non-duality), which has been described as that place where science and spirituality meet.

I know for a fact that many physicists of today are working on the correlation between advaita and quantum physics. One of them, and I know this for a fact, was the late German atom physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker, as well as the two mentioned in the quote above.
I'm pretty sure physicists are still working on cold fusion, but I don't hold out much hope for them to come up with anything useful. There have been variations on sonoluminescence that has been shown to cause fusion, it's apparently too little to be useful as a commercial energy source.

But if you're really interested in this stuff, here's a radio show I used to listen to in the early '90's back when I thought there just might be something to some of that "spirituality" stuff (I gotta take notes for my memoir here, I almost forgot about this):
http://www.newdimensions.org/
I heard lots of interviews from scientists, priests, and leaders/purveyors of various Eastern, new age and other beliefs/studies. I recall at least two interviews with James Redfield, author of the very popular "The Celestine Prophesy" and follow-up books.

Back then New Dimensions it was funded and/or connected to the Institute of Noetic Sciences, though I see no connection between these two now:
http://www.noetic.org
It's an "interesting" organization founded by Apollo Moon astronaut Edgar Mitchell:
http://www.noetic.org/about/history.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Mitchell
I think this is the direction that "scientific proof of God" is going to go.

Like most atheists, I don't believe in anything on faith alone. I do believe in that energy because I can observe it myself. It's here and now, in me (and you), and can be experienced.
...
If that energy -- which physics agree does exist -- is in me then I can know it. And I do.
No, energy in physics and science is a very specific physical phenomenon (I effectively buy energy from both the electric company and the gas station), and it has no connection with the way I see you using the word. Many people similarly confuse the scientific term power with its common meaning of personal power, political power and others.

But if you CAN control THAT type energy with your mind, you can do telekinesis. Money may not motivate you, but James Randi among others would pay you a large pile of money for a successful demonstration.

[Ruv Draba]

And if mysticism doesn't have to do with God, faith, and the afterlife?I normally call it 'poetry' and I'm a fan. But I don't let poetry inform my morality... or at least, I don't let it grab the steering-wheel. :)

[Ruv Draba]

James Randi among others would pay you a large pile of money for a successful demonstration.From the James Randi Foundation (http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html):

At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place. All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant. In most cases, the applicant will be asked to perform a relatively simple preliminary test of the claim, which if successful, will be followed by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary testing process, the "applicant" becomes a "claimant."

To date, no one has passed the preliminary tests.
An AW-style bulletin-board with six pages listing failed applicants is here (http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=43&order=desc). They're an interesting bunch -- X-ray eyes, telepaths, telekinetics, astrologers, faith-healers and stuff I'd never heard of. Judging from the tone of their letters where included I think at least half applied in good faith. It's also fairly clear that a lot of mystics hadn't considered gaining independent evidence before applying, and that few have considered alternative explanations to their own preferred one.

One of the problems a skeptic like me has with mystical claims is this: if mysticism were such a reliable gauge of objective truth, then why can't mystics agree on what the truth is? Scientists may disagree for a while, but on any practical matter, science itself settles the arguments. Yet mystics never seem to agree and they've been going at it for thousands of years longer than science has. If they can't all be right and they can't agree, then why must any of them be right?

Or if mysticism is about subjective, internal truth that varies from person to person why then do so many mystics presume to tell others how things work, how to think and what to do?

I find it all perplexing.

[ChristineR]

In the early days of the Randi challenge, a lot of fakes applied, as did a lot of serious psi investigators. All the psi investigators quickly realized that psi wasn't going to work under controlled conditions, and either stopped investigating psi, or stopped trying to use controlled conditions. All the fakes were caught out by Randi, so they stopped applying also.

Nowadays the overwhelming majority of applicants are too confused to make up a coherent proposal of what they hope to do. You get people who claim that they're aliens, but are unable to explain what makes them different from everyone else, that sort of thing.

The majority of "serious" challenges come from dowsers, or some variation thereof. The thing about dowsing is that when you know where the object is, you really do feel like the dowsing rod is moving, even though you're unconsciously moving it yourself. For the people it works for, it can be a very powerful moment. However, these people could easily test dowsing by wearing a blindfold or not knowing where the object is, something like that.

Water dowsing is harder to test for unless your personal theory of dowsing allows you to find water in a pail. Randi has several times run tests where he dug up a field and put pipes in it, then buried the pipes, then ran water through one pipe and asked dowsers to find their way. Every one of them said he could do it, none of them could.

[benbradley]

I've written about "evidence for God" a few times before in this forum on AW, and here's if not my very first post, certainly one of my earliest:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49956
Be sure to go to the link for Susan Blackmoore. She spent decades doing a lot of investigations similar to what Randi has done, and after consistently and repeatedly finding no evidence, she finally quit.

ETA: Adding the direct link, because I think it's so interesting:
Imagine this ... Imagine a world in which if you love someone enough, or need them enough, your minds will communicate across the world wherever you are, regardless of space and time. Imagine a world in which, if only you can think a thought clearly and powerfully enough it can take on a life of its own, moving objects and influencing the outcome of events far away. Imagine a world in which each of us has a special inner core - a ‘real self’ - that makes us who we are, that can think and move independently of our coarse physical body, and that ultimately survives death, giving meaning to our otherwise short and pointless lives. This is (roughly speaking) how most people think the world is. It is how I used to think -and even hope - that the world is. I devoted 25 years of my life to trying to find out whether it is. Now I have given up.
http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/Kurtz.htm

[zornhau]

Going back on topic, I think all this does rather underline that (most) atheists and theists occupy different - hang on, must check the term... yes... here it is - epistomological (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistomology) worlds.

You can't prove to me that God exists because you can't define him in terms that make sense to me, and you can't provide material evidence that points beyond the material world.

Conversely, I don't have the tools to directly demolish your faith or personal revelation because they all relate to the material world, which you don't think applies to the supernatural/mystical world.

So, I think that the answer to the original poster is that evidence alone would shift neither theists nor atheists since each could fit it neatly into their world view. It would have to be coupled with some sort of subjective experience that challenged our epistomology.

[DrZoidberg]

So when and how exactly did that change?


Well, the short answer is that it changed in those groups it changed. Franchises are quite autonomous. I know there's many AA's that still are blatantly Christian, as originally intended. But there's no control organ within AA to make sure that the members stay in line with the wishes of the founders. This is something I like about the AA.


That's interesting. Maybe you can tell us why Scientology is so popular? Scientology doesn't even have the big advantage I posted earlier that AA has, judges sending DUI offendors to them.


Swedish courts don't force AA on drunken offenders. In Sweden it's seen as a clear violation of the separation of church and state. Even though the church-state separation issue is something Swedish culture take very lightly on. We think it's weird that this isn't major issue in USA, where church-state separation is a serious issue.


I've never heard the word fetish used to describe it - perhaps in Sweden that word means something less "specific" than in the USA. Looking it up, I see it does indeed have a more general meaning (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fetish) but as a citizen of the oversexualized USA, I've never heard fetish used outside the sexual meaning of definition 1c.


We use it pretty much the same way. But to be nit-picky using the word "fetish" alone to describe a "sexual fetish" is strictly speaking a misuse of the term. The term alone always denotes an object of worship.


How would they have been dead?


That's what they tell me.


Maybe AA is "watered down" in Sweden, which would make sense - if open agnosticism and atheism are as common as you say there, the original USA version of AA would get a poor reception there. Almost certainly, that would explain any change or watering down from the original USA version.


I'd say most Swedes are more apatheistic than anything. The thing is that the Swedish Lutheran church (that is the dominant faith) is so liberal and permissive that it has made itself irrelevant. The idea that ones faith can have any impact what so ever on a persons life is quite alien to the vast majority of Swedes. So most Swedes have most often given religion little or no thought. They say they do, but if you ask them how they reached their conclusions there's nothing underneath. My impression is that the various titles, atheistic, agnostic, Lutheran, over here are all pretty much picked at random.


You may be interested in looking at these webpages concerning AA:
http://orange-papers.org
http://peele.net

There's also http://morerevealed.com by author Ken Ragge, but it's not up at the moment. There's a subpage on it, originally an older website, that currently works:
http://www.morerevealed.com/aadep/

Thanks

[Diana Hignutt]

I normally call it 'poetry' and I'm a fan. But I don't let poetry inform my morality... or at least, I don't let it grab the steering-wheel. :)

Just for the record, I don't let my belief in an intellegent universe (call it god, that's fine) and magick inform my morality either. Even though both have been proven by my personal experiements, which I am bound by oath to keep secret.

[Diana Hignutt]

What was the strawman? Suggesting that it is less likely that intelligence came spontaneously into existence out of nothingness than that matter came into existence out of nothingness and evolved?

Are you saying that intelligence doesn't come spontaneously into existence out of nothing? Really, I'm completely lost. It's not fair to throw terms like "strawman" at someone and not explain yourself. I would never, ever, knowingly use a strawman argument.

Yet, almost every argument the atheists are using here are strawmen. An example, you brought anti-matter into the discussion. Yousaid that if the sun and moon being the same size was evidence of god why wouldn't the creator line up stars in such a way that says "God is real" or some such. Yeah, that's a strawman, too. I don't think it's intentional, I think it's a function of the topic itself.

[Ruv Draba]

Just for the record, I don't let my belief in an intellegent universe (call it god, that's fine) and magick inform my morality either. Even though both have been proven by my personal experiements, which I am bound by oath to keep secret.What, if anything, do they inform?

And surely, a secrecy oath is itself a moral commitment? So if that's the price to play with mysticism, aren't you already morally committed?

[Diana Hignutt]

What, if anything, do they inform?

And surely, a secrecy oath is itself a moral commitment? So if that's the price to play with mysticism, aren't you already morally committed?

No. It's not my belief in mysticism that maintains my oath, but my belief in oaths. Otherwise: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law." And, I don't even pay much attention to that.

[Ruv Draba]

Yet, almost every argument the atheists are using here are strawmen.I understand your frustration, Diana, but consider: when the people you talk to won't define their terms but are adamant about their standards for evidence, how should one respond?

Strawmen are a sort of trial-and-error set of guesses at ill-defined terminology. I for one have no understanding or confidence at guessing at the meaning of mystical terminology and don't see it as my responsibility to fill in the gaps. However, as a skeptic I have many opinions about evidence, but I can't get to that part of the discussion without definitions that others won't supply. So very often, whatever effort I make at establishing common ground is doomed before I start.

One attempt to resolve this is straw-men: possible meanings that mystics can either confirm or deny.

But like you, I think that the game of straw-men is silly. Why play a game where disbelievers try and guess what the mystic believes and the mystic says 'Not that'? Why should the mystic be the center of attention? Why should the disbeliever spend all the effort doing the hard work?

My preference is not to construct straw-men at all unless they have more use than just debunking mysticism: some straw-men are precursors of working models, and I see that as constructive where the punters play in good faith.

My personal view: mystics can say whatever they want but to me it's just fantasy without clear definitions and an agreed testing protocol. I acknowledge no obligation to respond to fantasy as possible reality until it meets minimum critiera for consideration. Or to paraphrase Dawkins: we all have to be tall enough to go on the same ride.

[PeterL]

How is "not making sense" piling on?


I feel pity.

[Diana Hignutt]

My personal view: mystics can say whatever they want but to me it's just fantasy without clear definitions and an agreed testing protocol. I acknowledge no obligation to respond to fantasy as possible reality until it meets minimum critiera for consideration. Or to paraphrase Dawkins: we all have to be tall enough to go on the same ride.

Most mystics don't care what atheists think, and are at a loss as to why we shoud care. You're the ones who "need" the proof, not us. We see and feel it everyday. It's like trying to explain sight to the blind. You don't have the equipment to "see." Perhaps that is a good thing for you.

ETA: I spent years trying to mysticly bend the universe to my will and transform myself from a man into a woman. I am now a woman. There is a perfect example of magick working. ;)

[ChristineR]

Yet, almost every argument the atheists are using here are strawmen. An example, you brought anti-matter into the discussion. Yousaid that if the sun and moon being the same size was evidence of god why wouldn't the creator line up stars in such a way that says "God is real" or some such. Yeah, that's a strawman, too. I don't think it's intentional, I think it's a function of the topic itself.

But I didn't say that. I said that if the stars lined up to say "God is real," that would be evidence I'd accept. I did not say that the creator should or would do that. I said all that before you brought the sun and the moon into it, and I did not say that a creator picking the size of the sun and moon implied that the creator could or should line the stars up.

You said awareness came spontaneously into existence. I said I thought it was more likely that matter came spontaneously into existence, and evolved into awareness.

What I was trying to do was to force you to say why you thought awareness might spontaneously come into existence. We don't know how awareness might spontaneously come into existence, but we do know how matter might. I don't see any strawmen there at all. I was not, for example, implying that you said matter could not come into existence spontaneously.

I'll say why I don't accept the sun and the moon argument. If we lived on a planet where the moon was much larger than the sun, or much smaller than the sun, we'd still have really spectacular eclipses. They be different, but still really cool. Or if we lived on a planet with three moons, one large, one small, and one the same size, we'd get to have three different sizes of really cool eclipses. I imagine that people on that planet would argue that this was evidence for God.

All I really want as evidence for God is stuff that can't be better explained some other way. The sun and moon has a very straightforward explanation already.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I feel pity.

The feeling's mutual, I'm sure.

Most mystics don't care what atheists think, and are at a loss as to why we shoud care. You're the ones who "need" the proof, not us. We see and feel it everyday.

Um, we don't NEED proof. Honestly, we don't even care. The existence or non-existence of gods have no bearing upon our lives whatsoever.

[kuwisdelu]

Um, we don't NEED proof. Honestly, we don't even care. The existence or non-existence of gods have no bearing upon our lives whatsoever.

What the ferret said.

I have better things to do than try to disprove god. And I'm not particularly interested in proving god, either. What I will do is point out flaws in any argument one way or the other when I see them.

[Diana Hignutt]

It's odd that we've filled up nine pages on a topic no one cares about.

[Ruv Draba]

You don't have the equipment to "see." Perhaps that is a good thing for you.I believe you may be right. But perhaps that's a good thing for everyone, at times?

I think that poetry is a great gift -- not just to poets but to the world. I'd be the first to acknowledge that I don't have much of a poet's soul, but I'm deeply grateful for the people around me who do. But I'd also say that there are places where a poetical perception is not the one we should use for making decisions.

ETA: I spent years trying to mysticly bend the universe to my will and transform myself from a man into a woman. I am now a woman. There is a perfect example of magick working. ;)I am happy that you have what you want, Diana. I agree that such magick must be potent indeed to retrospectively manifest thousands of man-years into transgender research for this purpose.

I can only condemn you though for your utter selfishness in causing it to manifest in just your own milieu. Why did you choose to deny generations of your predecessors the same benefit?

If that is the universe of your will then all I can say is: shame on you.

[Ruv Draba]

It's odd that we've filled up nine pages on a topic no one cares about.I'm just delighted that it's been civil and even halfway constructive for nine pages and hasn't needed a lock. That could be a record for a CRPD thread. :)

Anyway, my compliments to my mystical and theistic colleagues for their part in keeping it interesting, robust and civil. :D

[Shadow_Ferret]

It's odd that we've filled up nine pages on a topic no one cares about.

I just like to argue regardless of topic.

And in real life, I don't argue about god. There's no point. I have friends who are believers, why would I want to get into a pissing match over something that has no bearing on our friendship?

[Ruv Draba]

Back a little way to genetic algorithms again, I find this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=gFWDxqcZqvY&feature=related) fascinating. It features virtual creatures put together from simple parts, with evolved strategies for moving around and competing over an object (which might represent food). It's fascinating to see how many strategies from nature can emerge from such a simple simulation, without any need for an intelligent designer.

While it's not true that simulations 'prove' anything about reality, they certainly go a long way toward showing the plausibility of certain models.

It also raises the following philosophical question for me: if intelligent behaviour and effective design don't require "irreducible complexity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design#Irreducible_complexity)" in the first place then why pick nits over whether it exists at all? In the face of smarts spontaneously emerging from simple components, the argument of design-complexity might only prove that any "intelligent design" was neither intelligent nor even necessary. :)

[AMCrenshaw]

I dunno. The mysticism I talk about is the acknowledgment of being beyond what we can give a name.

The mysticism I talk about can be arrived at philosophically and poetically. Empirically? If we believe such being exists (beyond what we can name), can we observe that being?

Nonetheless, there seems to be as much practical value in worshiping or identifying with that being as such - or at least no more or less than any other form of poetry. But, now that we're on the topic, when I read Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan, or TS Eliot's 4Q, I find, alongside 'reasons' why I should live my life, a desire to learn "how" to live my life. Poetry doesn't speak to this?

What about war poetry? Poetry that depicts war in ways war cannot otherwise be depicted; poetry from the hearts and minds of those who had the experiences firsthand. And besides firsthand experience, what's going to communicate what war is really like for people- as whole beings- better than poetry?



AMC

[zornhau]

It's odd that we've filled up nine pages on a topic no one cares about.

Well, this is a writing forum. I'm dropped by to explain my position so it can be better represented in fiction, and to learn how the theists think, so I can write them more effectively - almost all my heroes were pious men.

[PeterL]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God#God_exists_and_this_can_be_demons trated

[Shadow_Ferret]

So essentially the proof that god exists is because believers say He exists?

[Ruv Draba]

I dunno. The mysticism I talk about is the acknowledgment of being beyond what we can give a name.I think that's true, but to me that's mystery and not mysticism. Not knowing what's in the box doesn't make it magical. If we look harder or longer we simply find out more. Sometimes what we find is wonderful, sometimes appalling, and often it's a bit of both. As social creatures we're disposed toward finding one another fascinating (and what writer is unexcited by character?), but we're far from the only fascinating things in existence.

when I read Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan, or TS Eliot's 4Q, I find, alongside 'reasons' why I should live my life, a desire to learn "how" to live my life. Poetry doesn't speak to this?I understand why poetry can grip people and even transform them. In some ways that's exactly what the artist wants.

It's personal preference now, but as a writer/teacher/consultant/friend I'm delighted when someone tells me: you really made me stop and think, and now I'm doing things differently. I get very concerned though when people say: I'm doing exactly as you told me.

For many people I think that mysticism is not a gateway to truth but stagnation because poetry is great at catching our existing feelings and thus telling us exactly what we most want to hear. For some, I agree that it's a gateway to change -- even beneficial change, but I think that's because it's a source of challenge and not answers.

Past that, I think there are some very few folk for whom mysticism is a gateway to deep, shared insight but I don't think they're the sorts of people who take every whimsical thought at face value. Some of my favourite scientific heroes were also mystics, but they weren't mystics alone -- they were also skilled and discerning sceptics with vast domain knowledge built from intensive observation and experience. So for them I think mysticism offered short-hand insights into stuff they already knew well. But that doesn't make mysticism a good short-cut for folk without that experience.

Actually, perhaps that's the core of my point: poetry can help us change but I don't think it's a short-cut to better living because I don't believe that there are any short-cuts.

[Ruv Draba]

Well, this is a writing forum. I'm dropped by to explain my position so it can be better represented in fiction, and to learn how the theists think, so I can write them more effectively - almost all my heroes were pious men.This would make a good 'why are you here' thread. It's odd that we haven't done such a thing here before. Someone want to kick it off?

ETA: Oh silly Ruv. We have one (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132489). I even posted to it. I just fergot. :e2tomato: (I had to go back and read what I wrote to recall what I'm doing here. :tongue)

Religion for me is a humanist concern -- it relates to what we think of ourselves, how we live, how we treat one another. I'm also a bit of a geek about episto.. pis.... about truth and knowledge as studies in themselves. I'm fascinated at how we make sense of things. It's perhaps that truth and knowledge aspect which is perhaps my strongest writerly interest. There's a lot of drama in being confronted with the unknown, the unthought-of and the unthinkable, in seeing ourselves in ways we're not used to, in losing the little stories that keep us fat, dumb and happy. (Oh look, it's sitting above my avatar: 'Heresies that Bite'.)

[fullbookjacket]

The original topic of evidence has become one of "proof". Proof of anything is difficult, if not impossible. Evidence is much easier.

However, I've long noticed that theists describe this or that experience or phenomenon as evidence of a god. This is a mistaken correlation. An unlikely healing from disease is not evidence of gods. It's merely evidence of an unlikely healing from disease.

To put it another way, if you have a life-threatening illness and you pray to Yahweh or Allah or Odin for a cure, and you do get well, that is not evidence that they in fact exist. For if you accepted that premise, then if you prayed with all your might for a cure and WEREN'T cured, you would have to accept the event as evidence that gods don't exist.

[PeterL]

The original topic of evidence has become one of "proof". Proof of anything is difficult, if not impossible. Evidence is much easier.



I noticed the same, but anything can be considered evidence of of God, so limiting it a little makes sense.

Actually, proving most things is fairly easy.

[knight_tour]

This would make a good 'why are you here' thread. It's odd that we haven't done such a thing here before. Someone want to kick it off?

ETA: Oh silly Ruv. We have one (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132489). I even posted to it. I just fergot. :e2tomato: (I had to go back and read what I wrote to recall what I'm doing here. :tongue)

Religion for me is a humanist concern -- it relates to what we think of ourselves, how we live, how we treat one another. I'm also a bit of a geek about episto.. pis.... about truth and knowledge as studies in themselves. I'm fascinated at how we make sense of things. It's perhaps that truth and knowledge aspect which is perhaps my strongest writerly interest. There's a lot of drama in being confronted with the unknown, the unthought-of and the unthinkable, in seeing ourselves in ways we're not used to, in losing the little stories that keep us fat, dumb and happy. (Oh look, it's sitting above my avatar: 'Heresies that Bite'.)

Yeah, I consider religion to be a natural part of evolution, at least once a higher intelligence begins to evolve. Since I write fantasy and sci-fi and have to do world building, I need to consider all elements of evolution incuding religion. Religion may be a rather silly part of evolution, but I really doubt a race could evolve higher intelligence without going through some sort of religious phase.

[ResearchGuy]

. . . then if you prayed with all your might for a cure and WEREN'T cured, you would have to accept the event as evidence that gods don't exist.
Or that the god(s) don't give a rat's ass about you.

--Ken

[fullbookjacket]

Actually, proving most things is fairly easy.

I disagree. I really have no proof that anything even exists at all, outside my own consciousness.

But that's an extreme outlook. For concrete examples, look at the US criminal justice system. Our prisons are rife with innocent persons that were "proven" guilty.

"Proof" is incontrovertibly correct evidence. Aside from some mathematical constructs, what can reasonably be proven?

If I gave you a tape measure and instructed you to measure the distance from the door of building 'A' to a point across the yard, and you measure it to 89.46 feet, is that proof of the distance? Even if you measured it on five successive days and found the same measurement? No, because measurement ALWAYS contains error. You could measure the same distance on the sixth day and find it to be 89.48 feet, because maybe the sun is now out and the tape has warmed and expanded. Furthermore, the theoretical exact distance could be carried out to an infinite number of decimal digits, so your initial 89.46 is simply a rounding of the exact number. Good measurements are simply an effort to minimize error which, as I said, always occurs.

[fullbookjacket]

Or that the god(s) don't give a rat's ass about you.

--Ken

Correct, which I think most would find even more disturbing than there being no gods at all.

[ChristineR]

When I was a Christian kid, growing up in an abusive home, I assumed God hated me. :(

[kuwisdelu]

Correct, which I think most would find even more disturbing than there being no gods at all.

Depends. Not so from a deist point of view, if one merely sees god as a non-interfering clock-maker.

[semilargeintestine]

For the "believers": What evidence do you accept for the existence of God? How would you differentiate between possibly legitimate visions, miracles, etc., and hoaxes or misunderstandings?

This comes from a Torah-observant Jew. And before I answer, let me just say this: I don't need evidence. A soul has a natural connection to God as it is part of God. It is only when this connection gets clouded and plugged up that we need to "prove" the existence of something our souls know already. When people find something that proves a "story" in Tanakh or something, they have it backwards. That part of the Torah isn't true because they found some evidence; rather, that evidence had to be there because the Torah is true.


Three parts to the answer: what would I accept for evidence or what do I accept, differentiating between stuff, and your specific example.

Evidence I accept or would accept:

1. Prophecies in Tanakh. There are numerous prophecies all over Tanakh that have come to fruition, many of which are either discussing specific dates and people or things that seem to go against what would make logical sense. Nonetheless, they have come true.

I won't get into the details unless someone wants me to, but a few of them are the connection between Jews and the Land of Israel; the destruction of the First Holy Temple, the Exile in Bavel, and the construction and destruction of the Second Holy Temple; the miraculous fall of Sancheriv's army by an overnight plague; and the preservation and sanctification of the Jewish people and the prophecies regarding our population and punishments.

2. Extra-Biblical evidence and accounts of events in Tanakh. Recently, there was found a piece of writing from approximately the time of the Judges. The Hebrew writing not only points to widespread literacy in the Land of Israel in the 10th century BCE, but discusses the Judges which occurred during that time period. About a hundred years ago, several inscriptions in the Sinai desert were found discussing various events found in the Torah during the Exodus (kriath yam suf, the plague following the golden calf, alters for bringing offerings with names on them). The language was clearly Hebrew, but the script was very proto-Hebrew and from about the same time as the piece of writing just found last year--which would put it at around the same time the Exodus is supposed to have happened. Interestingly, the description of the parting of the Sea of Reeds does not quote Biblical passages and is written in a completely different style essentially from the point of view of a first-hand witness.

There have also been numerous artifacts found in Egypt that discuss Hebrew slaves not meeting their quotas and either attempting to escape or generally being unruly. There have been clay tablets with Biblical names from Genesis that date to that time period, as well as a very famous sculpture of a ram caught in a bush (from the story of the Binding of Isaac) that dates to the 20th century BCE--around the time it would have happened. This is not to mention the numerous things that have been found in the Land of Israel that confirm later events in Tanakh.

3. Modern events. If I were an atheist, the miracles of the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War would be enough to convince me of the existence of God, or at least that there is a Higher Power watching out for the Jews. Reading about a small nation being brought so close to utter annihilation and then experiencing miraculous victory after miraculous victory against multiple nations from all sides gives me chills.

Personal events also take a hand in this, as I have experienced a bunch of "hidden" miracles myself (when things just seem to go right when the odds are against it) and a couple of "open" ones (when something happens that seems to defy logic and/or nature in an obvious way). Additionally, there are daily personal experiences that are difficult to understand, such as feeling the Presence of God during prayer, having prayers responded to and answered in one way or another, etc.

4. Logic. While parts of our faith defy logic, the basic story and belief system is completely logical. There is a non-physical entity Who was the impetus for the creation of the universe. We could spend a whole thread just on the logic of believing in God.


Differentiating between possibly legitimate visions, miracles, etc., and hoaxes or misunderstandings:

1. Possibly legitimate visions. There is a difference between having a psychic vision and having a prophecy. A psychic vision is something that comes from a natural God-given talent. However, because they are derived from the human brain or senses, they are fallible and frequently at least partially--if not completely--wrong. Prophecy, on the other hand, comes directly from God and is never wrong.

There is no more prophecy. We have not had it for over 2,000 years. The book of Malachi ends with the following verses:


הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי שֹׁלֵחַ לָכֶם, אֵת אֵלִיָּה הַנָּבִיא--לִפְנֵי, בּוֹא יוֹם יְהוָה, הַגָּדוֹל, וְהַנּוֹרָא

Behold, I will send to you Eliyahu the Prophet--before the coming of the Day of the LORD, the Great and the Awesome.

וְהֵשִׁיב לֵב-אָבוֹת עַל-בָּנִים, וְלֵב בָּנִים עַל-אֲבוֹתָם--פֶּן-אָבוֹא, וְהִכֵּיתִי אֶת-הָאָרֶץ חֵרֶם

And he shall turn the hearts of fathers unto their children, and the hearts of children unto their fathers--lest I come and strike down the land to excommunication.

Anyone claiming to have prophecy at this time is first considered to be either lying or have a psychiatric disorder. That said, we do believe that there are bits of prophecy still given to people in times of need or in certain situations that warrant it; however, there are no visions from God that have national and future consequences.

2. Miracles. This one is easy. If something happens and is miraculous, it's a miracle. A miracle does not have to be something huge like the splitting of the Sea. The Book of Esther is all about how God performs miracles every day using the natural world He created. These hidden miracles happen all the time: when you just happen to be in the right place at the right time, or an unlikely serious of events occurs to your benefit, etc. That is just as much the Hand of God as 18 Egyptian soldiers being frozen in their boots and unable to fire on 2 helpless Jewish reservists during the 1967 war.

Of course, if someone is using the term miracle as hyperbole like we tend to do nowadays, that may not be such a miracle. But common sense is pretty good at discerning when someone is being dramatic or not.

3. Hoaxes or misunderstandings. I'm not quite sure what you're talking about here. Do you mean when someone does something and claims it to be the work of God even though he did it himself? When a Jew tells me a story, I just assume he's telling the truth. If I find out he was, God-forbid, lying to me, that doesn't shake my faith in God. I just wonder why he felt he had to lie about something stupid like that.


Your specific example:

It could be an open miracle, and it could not be. I wasn't there. The story could be exaggerated, the illness could have been non-life threatening and self-limiting, etc. Regardless, someone who was ill and got better experienced a miracle. God could easily just have let that person die.

Our problem is we are unable to see the miracle in just waking up each day. The fact that we go to sleep and God allows us to live another day is nothing short of a miracle. This spiritual separation from God is why we have so many problems in this world. There is a great video on G4 about how in the near future, everything is basically going to be in the format of some sort of game or points system. The speaker goes through a day in that kind of life, and at the end explains how being constantly recorded and tracked can inadvertently cause us to be better people for the sole reason that we don't want our offspring to be embarrassed when they look at what we did with our lives. The fact that we need all this technology to be good people just shows us how far away we are from God. He gave us a book about how to be a good person if we only follow His example, but we're so far from Him that we aren't even able to see it.

[Ruv Draba]

It is only when this connection gets clouded and plugged up that we need to "prove" the existence of something our souls know already.Semi, what causes clouding and plugging, and what evidence is there that this occurs?

[semilargeintestine]

Semi, what causes clouding and plugging, and what evidence is there that this occurs?

So I'm going to give a big disclaimer here and say that this explanation is almost entirely metaphorical. It is easiest to explain this concept in metaphorical terms, so I will. After, I'll try to explain the actual understanding of this concept.

The easiest way to think of it is to picture the spiritual connection between a person and God as like a telephone line (the old, hard line--not cellular). Just imagine that Mordecai is down here on earth and God is up there in heaven (I told you it was metaphorical). Imagine now that there is a telephone line that directly connects the two. At first, the signal is completely clear and there is a direct flow between the two parties.

However, not long after we push play, Mordecai does something wrong. The thing he does wrong isn't like a mistake that he makes unknowingly, he just did something that he knows is wrong but was too tempted to do the right thing. Most of the commentators would say that a sin like this is due to Mordecai temporarily forgetting that God is always there (because if that was always on Mordecai's mind, he would never sin). This temporary pull of Mordecai's soul away from the spiritual and into the physical creates a tiny bit of static in the connection.

This is because there are three levels the soul can be at: the purely spiritual, the purely physical, and a combination of both. We know that life in this world is never purely spiritual or physical except at death when it is both (soul becomes purely spiritual and body becomes purely physical), but rather a combination of the two. It is the balance that is important, and when we are pulled to the physical side, we bring back a little bit of static when we move back to equilibrium.

The more times we sway over to the physical, and the further we sway, more static appears on the signal. The signal gets fuzzier and fuzzier until it is completely unrecognizable. The connection is still there, but we have no idea who is on the other end. Luckily, God knew this could happen and set up ways to remove this static.

There are many verses in Tanakh that describe this. They do not use specifically those terms, but rather speak in terms of blemishes or of distance from God. The principle is the same. They also talk of ways to eliminate the blemishes, or static. Extra-Biblically, we see that as the connection has gotten fuzzier and fuzzier over the centuries, we have had to compensate in more physical ways.

People like to say that people lived much shorter lives historically. This is true for certain groups of people and countries where they were forced to work hard at manual labour every day for 30 years; however, we also know that people regularly lived into their 50s, 60s, and 70s and beyond even as far back as Plato (who I think it is estimated lived into his 80s). These people had not the sophisticated medical establishment we have with all of our medical technology, and yet their lives were just as long as ours.

But, as the fuzziness increased and we shifted from the balance of spiritual and physical to a more physical world, we needed to invent things in the physical world to compensate for a lack of spirituality. The video I mentioned on G4 is a great example. Interestingly, Jews statistically live longer than non-Jews. For example, statistics compiled by the Office for National Statistics in 2008 showed that Jews are 3 times more likely to live to 100 and 2 times as likely to live to 90 as the rest of England and Wales. The gedolim (very holy and learned rabbis) regularly live into their 90s. This may be because Jews as a nation are naturally closer to God because of our covenant with Him and our innate connection to Him through this covenant.


To get back to the plugging, the actual story is quite a bit more abstract and complicated than the example I gave. In reality, God is completely non-physical and is everywhere. Therefore, any discussion of closeness or of a connection to Him is, by definition, metaphorical. What we are really talking about is the level of spirituality on which our consciousness resides. The more naturally focused on God and Torah that a person is, the closer he is to God. This is why studying Torah on the Sabbath (the holiest day of the week) is considered to be the holiest thing one can do.

Knowing that we are not perfect and have free choice, God set up a system to compensate for the inevitable sway to the physical. There is a very straightforward system to effectively erase sins and "static." In fact, there is a very famous line in the Gemara that states that someone who sins and returns to God stands in a place that not even the perfectly righteous man cannot stand. This is because in returning to God, the person who sinned must focus his mind in the spiritual and learn the intricacies of the sin he committed. This brings him to a level of spirituality that someone who has never sinned will never reach.

The fuzziness of a person can also be removed on the merit of others, as is the case with many Jews who become religious later in life (most likely including myself). Sometimes God will cause something to happen to bring us back as well. It's up to us to decide if we want to listen or not.

[Ruv Draba]

Thanks, Semi. Then longevity is a sign of spiritual purity? And does the reverse suggest impurity?

[kuwisdelu]

I have a soul? What's that?

(Kind of kidding. Kind of not.)

[PeterL]

I disagree. I really have no proof that anything even exists at all, outside my own consciousness.

But that's an extreme outlook. For concrete examples, look at the US criminal justice system. Our prisons are rife with innocent persons that were "proven" guilty.

"Proof" is incontrovertibly correct evidence. Aside from some mathematical constructs, what can reasonably be proven?

If I gave you a tape measure and instructed you to measure the distance from the door of building 'A' to a point across the yard, and you measure it to 89.46 feet, is that proof of the distance? Even if you measured it on five successive days and found the same measurement? No, because measurement ALWAYS contains error. You could measure the same distance on the sixth day and find it to be 89.48 feet, because maybe the sun is now out and the tape has warmed and expanded. Furthermore, the theoretical exact distance could be carried out to an infinite number of decimal digits, so your initial 89.46 is simply a rounding of the exact number. Good measurements are simply an effort to minimize error which, as I said, always occurs.


You are confusing gaining data from proving something. Proving is an exercise in logic not a matter of gaining data.

[kuwisdelu]

You are confusing gaining data from proving something. Proving is an exercise in logic not a matter of gaining data.

Nope. Not unless you're talking pure math.

Proof requires evidence, data, to support the logic.

String theory, the Higgs boson, supersymmetry: these are all mathematically rigorous theories with internally consistent logic, but at the moment there's no evidence to prove or refute them.

[Ephrem Rodriguez]

Well, Eastern Orthodoxy has managed to keep its Platonism all this time, while in the west the Deists seem to be holding out pretty well. I have no personal use for Platonism, but wouldn't see it gone from our world -- it spawns far too much genius.

I suppose it's the job of Aristotelians to apply the necessary Natural Selection to keep Platonic bloodlines pure. ;)

Don't know if you can link to articles here but:
Is Orthodoxy Neo-Platonic?

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/orth_plato.aspx



God bless

[Ruv Draba]

Hi Ephrem. I don't think I've seen you post here before, so welcome and thank you for the article!

Clicking it sunk me cheekbones-deep into what appeared to be a prolonged and veiled squabble between Latinate and Hellenic Christian tradition over possible pagan heresy.

I stopped reading in detail at about 75% and skipped to the last point which seemed to contain a counter-jab about the Latinate tradition being unable to keep its traditions in the fold. :)

A few disclaimers here, Ephrem. I'm an atheist, a humanist and a student of religion as a human activity. I can't really take a side on theological politics unless the thought or behaviour becomes inhumane, so I'm not qualified to comment on whether Orthodoxy might ever have become neo-Platonic. I certainly don't see modern Eastern Orthodoxy as remotely pagan in the general sense of polytheistic paganism, and when it becomes a squabble about the 'deifyiing the self', I think it's actually about power anyway -- how much are priests permitted to claim and how much must be wrested from the flock. That's a question over which I have some strong views and I doubt that patriarchs or primates would much like them. :)

I don't know (and probably don't care) whether Eastern Orthodoxy is neo-Platonic, but I think it certainly has a Platonic character because of the way it seeks knowledge and the way it identifies what is knowledge and what isn't. But I think that some Protestant thought does this too.

To the extent that I have an opinion, I don't personally trust Platonism as a source of truth because I consider the self -- and especially its feelings and personal insights -- deceitful and erratic. But I think that Platonic reflection is often a source of good ideas for experiments into what the truth might be. Hence my earlier (somewhat wry) suggestion that Aristotelianism is a sort of predator on Platonism meant to keep it agile and evolving (and I might say the same about heretics and the Latin tradition). But my metaphor does not extend to what I think relations between Eastern Orthodox and Latinate Christian traditions should be. :)

Very best, Ruv.

[Ephrem Rodriguez]

Hi Ephrem. I don't think I've seen you post here before, so welcome and thank you for the article!

Thank you. I only meant to offer you the bits on the platonism and sort of hoped you'd turn a blind eye to the rest. It came with the article.

Words always get in the way.

St. John Chrysostom said something like, "the road to hell is paved with the skulls of the priests."

And St. Athanasius said something like, "the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of the bishops".

Anyway, it's hard trying to weed out true Orthodoxy from general Orthodoxy. You might find that your sentiments are shared on many levels by the very people you expect to take offense.

A devout Eastern Orthodox person with all the rites and rituals and religion can say in full confidence that in Christ is the end of all ritual, rite and religion. It's one of those things. Paradox.

As for evidence for God, I guess it's there. However, with what tool in the natural world do we have to measure such evidence? We might call it the nous but again, it's hard to differentiate between a nous and a noose.

There's good reason we call it a "faith". That the limitations of our cognitive minds are evident only points us beyond those limitations and that general movement alone is what makes us suspicious. Surely, we're smarter than rocks and surely something is more conscious than ourselves but beyond this, we can only shut our eyes and step out into the great unknown. If we are willing, anyway.

[Ruv Draba]

I think of proof being a disciplined story told step-by-step that takes the impartial listener from a place of knowledge A to a new place of knowledge B without sustained objection. Evidence is definitely an input to proof, but so is the listener's expectation. Also an input is agreement on what legal steps may be.

[fullbookjacket]

You are confusing gaining data from proving something. Proving is an exercise in logic not a matter of gaining data.

"Proof", "prove", and "proving" all have several definitions. "Proof" for most people is not simply a strong or even logical argument. One can make logical arguments for lots of things, even silly things.

My view of proof is that it requires incontrovertibility.

[benbradley]

The person who posts a word with the most syllables wins...