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How can one reject all testimonies, be they biblical, historical, prophetic,
and the miracles of the saints, as they were attested to, and all the
supernatural and unexplained, and all the arguments through reason,
then, after carefully considering these through much research over the
course of decades, if one still requires an outward manifestation of
God that is greater than you have experienced, many questions would
remain.
There is no conflict between faith and reason. Faith is reasonable.
If we are to go into a higher consciousness beyond the material realm,
which would predispose a life beyond the material, we must seek
evidence that is non-material. Do you believe that consciousness
and deep truths originated in the material ? How is that reasonable if
material is conditionally identifiable ?
How can one reject all testimonies, be they biblical, historical, prophetic,
and the miracles of the saints, as they were attested to, and all the
supernatural and unexplained, and all the arguments through reason,
then, after carefully considering these through much research over the
course of decades, if one still requires an outward manifestation of
God that is greater than you have experienced, many questions would
remain.
There is no conflict between faith and reason. Faith is reasonable.
If we are to go into a higher consciousness beyond the material realm,
which would predispose a life beyond the material, we must seek
evidence that is non-material. Do you believe that consciousness
and deep truths originated in the material ? How is that reasonable if
material is conditionally identifiable ?
Biblical testimonials. Didn't the bible present a ludicrous story of a flood that covered the entire Earth, and for which there is not a shred of evidence? Never head of a single verified miracle - none. Myths and superstitions, but no verified miracles. Nothing, zip, zero, nada. Even the story of Jesus was written 10 years after the fact, and who knows if it wasn't an impressionist they saw, or perhaps they crucified someone that looked like but wasn't Jesus. As any LEO can tell you Eye Witness evidence is the least-reliable of all, and you guys don't even have photographs or fingerprints or anything at all.
Faith and reason are exact opposites and as such incompatible in logic and rationality. Do you have any non-material evidence, such as radio waves, radiation, other form of energy that could be a "spirit" or "soul". you guys make the people who search for ghosts seem fully rational and legitimate.
And assuming your god is real, what kind of SOB is he. Builds flawed people, with foibles and weaknesses and vulnerability and subject to all sort of temptations, and they punishes them for being what HE made them to be!!! Says he loves you and then gives you Cancer (and what kind of loving god would invent Cancer in the first place). Gives children Cancer, or the least lets some fallen Angel (oops) run amok. If I was a god and I acted as yours is alleged to, I would fall on my sword and let somebody else take over. Hell, a drunk would be a step up.
No, my friends, the contradictions, the disconnects, the two-facedness is just too strong, the evidence so absolutely absent, for any creator worth a damn to exist. But I am still waiting.... still open to reviewing anything, but all that has been presented so far, basiically is just excuse-making and gibberish.
How can one reject all testimonies, be they biblical, historical, prophetic,
and the miracles of the saints, as they were attested to, and all the
supernatural and unexplained, and all the arguments through reason,
then, after carefully considering these through much research over the
course of decades, if one still requires an outward manifestation of
God that is greater than you have experienced, many questions would
remain.
There is no conflict between faith and reason. Faith is reasonable.
If we are to go into a higher consciousness beyond the material realm,
which would predispose a life beyond the material, we must seek
evidence that is non-material. Do you believe that consciousness
and deep truths originated in the material ? How is that reasonable if
material is conditionally identifiable ?
I am sure that the Buddhists, Jews, Shintos, Muslims, Hindu and followers of all other religious feel the same way about their religion and religious texts that you feel about yours. That is why I do not tell anyone that their religion or faith is wrong. I will argue or discuss their evidence when they claim that there is evidence for their beliefs as that is going away from faith of belief into.
I suspect that you are not going to find any evidence for the existence of any god.
The standard-issue invisible personal interventionist god not only needs evidence or logical argument in its favor, it needs to be presented as a scientifically valid falsifiable hypothesis for evidence and logic to even apply in the first place. That would have to be the starting point.
I'm a Pantheist. I perceive The Universe (ALL/EVERYTHING) as GOD. One of the most common perceptions of God in the history of mankind.
You believe there is "no evidence of existence" for The Universe (GOD)?
It is faith, not evidence, that powers most religions. If you don't believe in faith as a philosophical concept, than obviously you will reject religion.
I reject it as a failed epistemology that cannot and does not tend to lead one towards truth (other than accidentally, and by the way, it doesn't necessarily prevent one from being in touch with reality by other means).
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
But I never understand that to be a cohesive argument, as everyone has faith, unless you are solipsist and a moral relativist, but most atheists nowadays don't seem to be (I miss the Nietzsche style atheists, at least they were fun and consistent)
I suspect you may be conflating religious faith with an alternate definition of faith as more or less a synonym for "trust".
Religious faith is the belief in asserted dogma without a requirement for evidence or logical argument to substantiate it. So long as we are talking about that sort of "leap of faith" then it's an entirely cohesive argument we're making. If we were talking about trust justified by observation and experience (which we're not) then we would be wrong in something like the sense you suggest.
I would suggest that you be a little less certain of the composition of our reality and allow for the existence of God. That does not necessarily mean the Bible God as usually described.
I would suggest you be a little less certain of the composition of reality and allow the what we don't know is what we don't know. It could be god, God, satanic clowns, colonies of flesh eating bacteria, gigantic piles of telephone booths warehoused for future Dr Who episodes, or any combination of those or other things.
So you don't even know what exactly faith is?
Believing in the existence of God is a faith (plz look in the dictionary to know the meaning). It's a FREE CHOICE that one makes WITHOUT having any need of an evidence.
Yes it is "A" definition. There are two common dictionary definitions for the English word "faith" and as usual you are conflating them in this post.
Trusting a doctor based on your experience with doctors and medicine is not the same thing as a religious "leap of faith" that does not require evidence, as you point out yourself in the quote above.
The only experience people have of god is personal and subjective. You aren't the only person who claims to have seen, heard, touched and interacted with your doctor. You aren't making up the existence or track record of medical science and if you are, others can fact-check it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
There is no convincing required, there is no arguement needed. If you feel the need of God and his guidance in your life, you start looking for the signs of God.
So far so good ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
You use your intelligence to separate truth from lies.
And that's where it goes off the rails. If you feel the need for god, you start looking for signs of god (whatever those are to you) and your confirmation bias (your own needs and desires) leads you to them the same way a conspiracy theorist finds "evidence" for his pet conspiracies.
You can't begin to separate truth from lies without a falsifiable hypothesis and a search for evidence to DISprove it. In general most theists don't start with a testable / falsifiable hypothesis for god, so the search for evidence ends up being cherry picking things to support a predetermined conclusion.
You should be able to search a few medications that were proved with verified evidence to be beneficial in treating or curing some medical condition, and they were further verified by FDA before the mass production.
But as our knowledge grew, all the presented evidence by the pharmaceutical companies were thrown out of the window, large recalls were made, and huge law suits were filed by the victims.
According to the FDA, a "drug is removed from the market when its risks outweigh its benefits. A drug is usually taken off the market because of safety issues with the drug that cannot be corrected, such as when it is discovered that the drug can cause serious side effects that were not known at the time of approval." The FDA also takes into account the number of people taking a drug being considered for removal so as to not harm those patients.
I suppose you don't understand the difference between people working as industry scientists and actual physical science.
Science had nothing to do with these failures of drugs that make it to the market. Science had nothing to do with the fact that humans did not conduct larger scale clinical studies or studies to test the efficacy and safety of these human designed drugs. Humans not science were in control this.
Science just keeps on working as a systematically organized body of knowledge on particular subjects. It has no conscious intent.
It has no control over what humans do with it.
Last edited by Matadora; 05-16-2016 at 12:13 PM..
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