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Old 08-09-2015, 10:48 PM
 
Location: Sierra Nevada Land, CA
9,455 posts, read 12,508,411 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA View Post
No. But would you expect us to believe that you love your wife if you couldn't provide any valid evidence that you actually had a wife?
I have a piece of paper that says as much. Will that work? Also a woman who claims to be my wife. The paper could be forged or faked to support my claim.

So let us dismiss that bit of so called "evidence". The woman; we only have her subjective opinion. She has her claims and opinion, but we can dismiss those. After all there is no solid evidence. Just her claim and that questionable piece of paper.

And so it goes for the skeptic.
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Old 08-09-2015, 11:08 PM
 
Location: Somewhere
8,070 posts, read 6,947,926 times
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Ok so by having these discussions with his atheist friend he got closed to God by:

1. Reading the Bible to be able to answer some questions about it
2. Interpret the Bible more literally otherwise he might feel dishonest(softening the Bible)
3. He figured he didn't know everything about the Bible and that remind him he is not Omniscient like God.
4. The stress of these discussions would make him pray more.

#1,#3 and #4 sound fairly easy.

#2, I don't know. There are many parts of the Bible where the information is different. The Law can change depending on the book you are reading since the messenger was a different person. I think he still has to choose what to believe in otherwise he will be just as confused.
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Old 08-10-2015, 12:14 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr5150 View Post
I have a piece of paper that says as much. Will that work? Also a woman who claims to be my wife. The paper could be forged or faked to support my claim.

So let us dismiss that bit of so called "evidence". The woman; we only have her subjective opinion. She has her claims and opinion, but we can dismiss those. After all there is no solid evidence. Just her claim and that questionable piece of paper.

And so it goes for the skeptic.
You are trying to make it seem that it is as impossible to provide decent evidence that you have a wife as it seems impossible to provide decent evidence for a god. The more we check up your life with this woman the more the evidence for your wife builds up. With God -claims it is the opposite.

And so it goes for the religious apologist.
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Old 08-10-2015, 06:35 AM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,825 posts, read 13,364,699 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nateswift View Post
Mordant, you seem to think that the only choices are rational or irrational and that rational is always right. 'Tain't so. The third choice is non-rational and the result may be subject to analysis by rational examination whether arrived at by rational processes or not and they may be right or wrong, just as conclusions arrived at by rational processes can be wrong. Rationalization is also a lot of fun.
A thing is either rationally justifiable or it isn't.

That which is rationally justifiable is not always right, but only because we are imperfectly rational beings with imperfect knowledge and understanding, and senses and thought-perceptions that can be fooled. However, that being said, a rationally justified position is far more likely to be right than it is to be wrong.

As you are suggesting (if I correctly understand you), it is possible to use intuition, subjective experience or feeling, creativity, etc., to generate rationally testable hypotheses, but they still have to be testable to be anything but idle speculation or wishful thinking.
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Old 08-10-2015, 10:02 AM
 
6,324 posts, read 4,308,516 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nateswift View Post
Mordant, you seem to think that the only choices are rational or irrational and that rational is always right. 'Tain't so. The third choice is non-rational and the result may be subject to analysis by rational examination whether arrived at by rational processes or not and they may be right or wrong, just as conclusions arrived at by rational processes can be wrong. Rationalization is also a lot of fun.
Except when has an irrational explanation been shown to be true?
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Old 08-10-2015, 10:11 AM
 
Location: Ontario, Canada
31,374 posts, read 20,094,900 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
Except when has an irrational explanation been shown to be true?
I think Nate was careful to differentiate between irrational and not-rational. Not-rational would be acting on a hunch or feeling as opposed to a plan.
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Old 08-10-2015, 10:25 AM
 
6,324 posts, read 4,308,516 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr5150 View Post
The problem I have is the Holy Spirit. Rational arguments screaming for testable evidences just don't work when dealing with spiritual matters. And it really doesn't help when anything that suggests the spiritual is summarily dismissed by skeptics.

Skeptics may as well argue that I can't prove that I love my wife for lack of testable evidence.
Yes, I hear this "prove that I love my wife" argument quite often.

Here's the deal on that:

There are all kinds of non-verbal cues an observant person can see that would be evidence that you love your wife. In fact, it's super-easy to see when a person initially falls in love because they often behave like idiots (at least they do when they're roughly my age or younger). I can usually tell when a person is in love because of the amount of nonsense they're willing to put up with, the sacrifices they are willing to make, and the frequently dumb decisions they make in regards to their lives.

Older folks can be a bit tougher to tell if love is present, but even then, there are those non-verbal "tells" which could be as simple as how they sit together, their postures when they are talking to each other, the enthusiasm in their voices, and all kinds of things.

Nothing will ever prove conclusively, 100%, that you love your wife or that anyone loves anyone else. But like with nearly everything, we have to decide what to believe based on the available evidence.

I know religious people like to think that spirituality is above being proven or even having evidence for the existence of gods and angels and demons and whatnot. We're just supposed to blindly believe it, and not just "believe in it" but to be so sure it all exists that we'd be willing to sacrifice everything (friends, family, careers, possessions, everything) so that God always comes out on top.

Sorry, but no. That's a big reason why there are atheists. We simply haven't been taken in by societal pressures, cultural indoctrination, or even the negativity so often hurled our way so that we become die-hard, devout believers. The best we could ever hope to do is to pretend, to go through the motions of belief. But I can guarantee you with the same surety you feel about your religion that if every current atheist had the courage to tell the world they don't believe, you would see the number of believers drop precipitously and the number of atheists skyrocket into the stratosphere. There are far more of us than you think, and that's because there are truck loads of reasons not to believe and no good reason to hold on to belief except as a security blanket against death.

Human beings are more rational than even we atheists often give them credit for. The tenets of most all religions are wholly irrational -- and a lot more people than you realize have figured that out.
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Old 08-10-2015, 10:49 AM
 
Location: Sierra Nevada Land, CA
9,455 posts, read 12,508,411 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
Yes, I hear this "prove that I love my wife" argument quite often.

Here's the deal on that:

There are all kinds of non-verbal cues an observant person can see that would be evidence that you love your wife. In fact, it's super-easy to see when a person initially falls in love because they often behave like idiots (at least they do when they're roughly my age or younger). I can usually tell when a person is in love because of the amount of nonsense they're willing to put up with, the sacrifices they are willing to make, and the frequently dumb decisions they make in regards to their lives.

Older folks can be a bit tougher to tell if love is present, but even then, there are those non-verbal "tells" which could be as simple as how they sit together, their postures when they are talking to each other, the enthusiasm in their voices, and all kinds of things.

Nothing will ever prove conclusively, 100%, that you love your wife or that anyone loves anyone else. But like with nearly everything, we have to decide what to believe based on the available evidence.

I know religious people like to think that spirituality is above being proven or even having evidence for the existence of gods and angels and demons and whatnot. We're just supposed to blindly believe it, and not just "believe in it" but to be so sure it all exists that we'd be willing to sacrifice everything (friends, family, careers, possessions, everything) so that God always comes out on top.

Sorry, but no. That's a big reason why there are atheists. We simply haven't been taken in by societal pressures, cultural indoctrination, or even the negativity so often hurled our way so that we become die-hard, devout believers. The best we could ever hope to do is to pretend, to go through the motions of belief. But I can guarantee you with the same surety you feel about your religion that if every current atheist had the courage to tell the world they don't believe, you would see the number of believers drop precipitously and the number of atheists skyrocket into the stratosphere. There are far more of us than you think, and that's because there are truck loads of reasons not to believe and no good reason to hold on to belief except as a security blanket against death.

Human beings are more rational than even we atheists often give them credit for. The tenets of most all religions are wholly irrational -- and a lot more people than you realize have figured that out.
In my case, I was raised by atheists, but found God in my early 20s.
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Old 08-10-2015, 02:56 PM
 
2,441 posts, read 2,599,204 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr5150 View Post
I have a piece of paper that says as much. Will that work? Also a woman who claims to be my wife. The paper could be forged or faked to support my claim.

So let us dismiss that bit of so called "evidence". The woman; we only have her subjective opinion. She has her claims and opinion, but we can dismiss those. After all there is no solid evidence. Just her claim and that questionable piece of paper.

And so it goes for the skeptic.
No, we don't only have her subjective opinion, we have her physical existence. That's way more than theists have. Even if you just pointed out a random woman in a bar and told me she's your wife that is more evidence than theists have.
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Old 08-10-2015, 02:57 PM
 
2,441 posts, read 2,599,204 times
Reputation: 4644
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
Except when has an irrational explanation been shown to be true?
Biology. There is some craaaazy stuff out there, man!
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