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I didn't mean to put parameters around what you personally consider to qualify as evidence, although atheists/agnostics generally consider evidence to constitute as that which has been empirically verified. What do you consider to be evidence? Most atheists/agnostics will only accept something as evidence for religious claims if it has been verified empirically. If it is not empirically verified then it tends to be dismissed as a value judgement.
I didn't mean to put parameters around what you personally consider to qualify as evidence, although atheists/agnostics generally consider evidence to constitute as that which has been empirically verified. What do you consider to be evidence? Most atheists/agnostics will only accept something as evidence for religious claims if it has been verified empirically. If it is not empirically verified then it tends to be dismissed as a value judgement.
-The Spirit of God lives within me. He's as real to me as my own family.
-The Spirit of God lives within me. He's as real to me as my own family.
-The incredible design & size of the universe.
-The complexity of the human brain
-Cause & effect
-The existense of morality from the beginning.
-The existence of love.
Unfortunately most of these are still value based, relative or assumptive. The spirit living in you is something that you feel, and we can't deny what we feel. But it's still what you feel not necessarily what is.
The design of the universe already assumes that there is a designer. The size of it is relative to us. Perhaps the universe we know is the space between the atoms of something obviously much larger. Likewise with the complexity, there very well may be something out there that is much more complex than our brain. I mean, you can't conclusively prove that this isn't the case right?
And I'm not even going to open those last two up...
How can something even be evidence when the thing itself cannot even be verified outside one's personal feelings and values?
Unfortunately most of these are still value based, relative or assumptive. The spirit living in you is something that you feel, and we can't deny what we feel. But it's still what you feel not necessarily what is.
The design of the universe already assumes that there is a designer. The size of it is relative to us. Perhaps the universe we know is the space between the atoms of something obviously much larger. Likewise with the complexity, there very well may be something out there that is much more complex than our brain. I mean, you can't conclusively prove that this isn't the case right?
And I'm not even going to open those last two up...
How can something even be evidence when the thing itself cannot even be verified outside one's personal feelings and values?
Of course cause and effect can be verified (I'm replying to the post right)
But that doesn't mean that it had to be created by a higher power. In fact it would run counter to the notion of a creator because then one has to explain how a creator comes to be in a cause and effect universe. One could always conclude then that there must be "unmoved mover", and that may be so - it's not discountable.
But why jump spend all this time thinking in the vast theoretical, metaphysical realm of infinite possibilities then jump immediately to the conclusion that this means god is real? Just because it's not discountable doesn't mean that it is anything like any of the herd of gods that humanity has "experienced". That doesn't even mean that it has to be intelligent or any kind of life form at all. Or that simply may not be the case at all. There may not be any unmoved mover at all, that can't be conclusively disproven. Maybe the unmoved mover did create cause and effect, but that would mean that things can happen outside the realm of cause and effect. And if that can happen there's still no reason to jump to the conclusion that this is god. Maybe that is the universe itself. Or maybe nothing exists outside of cause and effect.
This is the general idea that I am trying to get to here. Even if these things are evidence, they aren't exclusive evidence for god. They can be evident of many other things that run quite counter to the notion of a god. Even if they are evidence of something bigger, it doesn't mean that it is the god that watches what you do in bed, or even the god that made the universe and walked away. It's just evidence that leads to an even bigger corridor of even more doors of possibility and in the end it still ends up being simply what could be and not what is. We could sit here till the end of time itself listing off things that could be but that's pretty cheap when compared to what is. Things like hunger - I'm thinkin about some Subway
Of course cause and effect can be verified (I'm replying to the post right)
But that doesn't mean that it had to be created by a higher power. In fact it would run counter to the notion of a creator because then one has to explain how a creator comes to be in a cause and effect universe. One could always conclude then that there must be "unmoved mover", and that may be so - it's not discountable.
But why jump spend all this time thinking in the vast theoretical, metaphysical realm of infinite possibilities then jump immediately to the conclusion that this means god is real? Just because it's not discountable doesn't mean that it is anything like any of the herd of gods that humanity has "experienced". That doesn't even mean that it has to be intelligent or any kind of life form at all. Or that simply may not be the case at all. There may not be any unmoved mover at all, that can't be conclusively disproven.
Then here again, that all depends on how we perceive time. As Konraden already said, what is time? And even so, this is still a what if - a could be. It still hinges on whether or not there is even a creator to exist outside of time.
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