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The God I perceive is verifiably true. There is direct evidence for the existence of the God I perceive..
Yeah...if you are like you and Mystic and simply label anything that you can see as 'God'. The bottle of water on my desk is 'God'...therefore God exists. Mind you don't operate heavy machinery with that kind of logic!
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Originally Posted by justus978
sounds like the op is trying to pick a fight...if the op needs 'evidence', so be it, have fun looking...some have faith others don't...
You seem to think that 'faith' is a good thing.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
"Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"
So why don't you believe in unicorns, mermaids and leprechauns. If you look under your bed and you don't see any evidence that there is an elephant living there, do you think.... 'Well there might be an elephant living here that is hiding the evidence of it's existence...' or do you conclude, based on the lack of evidence for an elephant, that there is no elephant there?
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
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.
Then why don't you believe in the existence of Ganesh?
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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.
You can do the same with fairies....
1. Convince yourself that fairies exist.
2. Convince yourself that you really need the help of fairies to live your life.
3. Start looking for signs of fairies.
...you will find fairies every where.
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Leave logic and reason out of it since we are looking for a "verifiable evidence". And since you don't have a verifiable evidence, you can't prove that you had a great grandfather.
Ummmm. One would not exist if one didn't have a great grandfather. See, for me to be here I would have to have had a father; my father would have to have had a father for him to have existed, that would be my grandfather; my grandfather would have to have had a father too and that would be my Great-grandfather. Got it?
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You get on a plane to fly accross the pond. Do you have a verifiable evidence that gives you a 100% guarantee that you will reach the destination safely? No! But you do get on the plane.
That is not 'faith'. I get on the plane based on the verifiable evidence that 99.99999% of planes get to their destination. Now if I got on the plane expecting it to reach it's destination when the verifiable evidence is that planes do not reach their destination...THAT would be 'faith'.
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You get sick and go to a doctor and he precribes you some medication. Do you ask for verifiable evidence from the doctor that it will 100% work for you before you start taking the medication? No, you pop up those pills in your mouth.
Again...not faith but based on verifiable, testable evidence that modern medicines work.
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Notice, how frequently you make a free choice to use faith every day?
Nope. If your examples are what you think 'faith' is then I would have to conclude that you actually have no idea of what 'faith' actually is.
Yeah...if you are like you and Mystic and simply label anything that you can see as 'God'. The bottle of water on my desk is 'God'...therefore God exists. Mind you don't operate heavy machinery with that kind of logic!
You seem to think that 'faith' is a good thing.
So why don't you believe in unicorns, mermaids and leprechauns. If you look under your bed and you don't see any evidence that there is an elephant living there, do you think.... 'Well there might be an elephant living here that is hiding the evidence of it's existence...' or do you conclude, based on the lack of evidence for an elephant, that there is no elephant there?
Then why don't you believe in the existence of Ganesh?
You can do the same with fairies....
1. Convince yourself that fairies exist.
2. Convince yourself that you really need the help of fairies to live your life.
3. Start looking for signs of fairies.
...you will find fairies every where.
Ummmm. One would not exist if one didn't have a great grandfather. See, for me to be here I would have to have had a father; my father would have to have had a father for him to have existed, that would be my grandfather; my grandfather would have to have had a father too and that would be my Great-grandfather. Got it?
That is not 'faith'. I get on the plane based on the verifiable evidence that 99.99999% of planes get to their destination. Now if I got on the plane expecting it to reach it's destination when the verifiable evidence is that planes do not reach their destination...THAT would be 'faith'.
Again...not faith but based on verifiable, testable evidence that modern medicines work.
Nope. If your examples are what you think 'faith' is then I would have to conclude that you actually have no idea of what 'faith' actually is.
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.
If you think about what you wrote, you will notice that we agree that science is never right. That is the nature of science. It remains open to change if the empirical data warrant the acceptance of change. That’s what makes it scientific and not a matter of faith or belief. Heliocentrism was “proven” wrong, but then so were Newtonian mechanics, and the excitement about the LHC is at least partly based on the possibility that some of today’s widely held beliefs will have to be revised in the face of new data.
So why don't you believe in unicorns, mermaids and leprechauns. If you look under your bed and you don't see any evidence that there is an elephant living there, do you think.... 'Well there might be an elephant living here that is hiding the evidence of it's existence...' or do you conclude, based on the lack of evidence for an elephant, that there is no elephant there?
.
I do not believe or care about unicorns, mermaids and leprechauns BECAUSE I CHOOSE NOT TO.
I researched about the qualities and what "unicorns, mermaids and leprechaun or Ganesh" had to offer - and I saw that they have nothing to offer that meets my needs and my wants.
Using my own intelligence, logic and research, I find that unicorns, mermaids, leprechaun and Ganesh have ABSOLUTELY NO USE FOR ME - So I don't care about them, I don't care whether they exist or not. I am not worried about it.
You are thirsty and looking for water. notice, there is a NEED of water here - you have faith that there is perhaps water if you look around.
I come to you and say, "hey you need water and you are looking for it, and you have faith that there is water somewhere around - do you also have faith that there is a broken iPhone 3 case somewhere around here?"
Does the broken iPhone 3 case meet my need of water? Do I, or should I care about a broken iPhone 3's case while I am looking for water?
Same goes with the faith.
I have a NEED and a WANT of God's guidance in my life. This does not mean that EVERYONE will have that want or need of God in their lives.
Since I felt that I had this need, I started to look for God's signs. I know that God is not going to arrange a one to one meeting with me and be at my service. I knew that God will not be found in a scientific lab where a mouse runs in a spinning wheel and KABOOOM !! an experiment will make God at my service.
I used my intelligence to separate lies from the truth. I saw what talked to me when I analyze God's message offered by different belief systems - and I chose the one that I thought suited to meet my needs the best.
Now, Atheists may NOT have a need or want of God in their lives, so they either deny God's existence or they don't care about what God is all about - and I am totally OK with it!
I have absolutely no problem if someone chooses not to believe in the existence of God.
My philosophy is simple, we should use your intelligence and our logic to do our own research to make choices based on free will - and in the end, we will be responsible for our choices.
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).
Define "truth" and define "reality". So many people throw these words around without actually analyzing them. In the end, the "science is everything!" crowd almost always base their beliefs on a foundation that is just as much faith based as that of a religious person. The only difference is that a lot of religious people will be honest, while very rarely will you meet one of these "science" people who have ever examined their own basis for belief.
[quote[
I suspect you may be conflating religious faith with an alternate definition of faith as more or less a synonym for "trust".[/quote]
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pluralfaiths play \ˈfāths, sometimes ˈfāthz\
1a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyaltyb(1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2a(1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b(1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>
Why have fidelity to one set of beliefs, while never considering another, and all the while thinking one is absolutely correct? "Faith" is a belief without "proof", and all "proof" is, ultimately, subjective. It is just that some understand it is all arbitrary while others don't...and there is NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. I only wish people would be honest about it.
Why believe in God? There is only one honest answer I can give: BECAUSE I CHOOSE TO
Why do some believe in an experiment carried out on the other side of the world by scientists they will never meet using equipment they will never see or touch and why do they accept the conclusions given on said scientific paper? Because they choose to.
I am not saying either is wrong because I am ultimately a believer in subjective reality to a point and I am a post-modernist.
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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.
"Observations" and "experiences" often convince people that religion is true. They experience God in their day to day life...and before you go on about "the need for controlled scientific experiments", I have yet to see science subjected to any other criteria outside of science to prove that science is sound.
All that is from the philosophical school of thought of positivism. Nothing wrong with that, but just saying, ultimately, what happens when we subject scientific rigor to a different school of thought?
Where is the scientific evidence for the existence of God? Where is the existential evidence for the greatness of science?
And casual observations are not usually accepted as scientific evidence anyway, but people base their lives on what they personally experience and if it works for them and they understand their justification for making that conclusion that that is a cohesive argument.
In short: I believe in GOD because I have experienced GOD, and my own life experience is what matters most to me in this life as I am only experiencing one personal existence at this moment and belief in GOD works for me and GOD does things for me on a personal level in this existence. I require no outside justification, be it from science, clergy, or other sentient beings to confirm that which I have experienced to be true on a deeply personal level. Could it all be a "hallucination"? Yes, and reality itself could also be a "hallucination" (Solipsism) and yet we accept reality for which there is no concrete proof. We accept it because we experience it and we chose to make a jump and say it is "real," or at least real enough for us.
GOD is real enough for me, and I require no other proof. I chose to believe based on the personal value I place on belief.
This whole exchange was summarized in a scene from a very underrated film:
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.
Whether it requires evidence or not - you don't demand an evidence - you don't even go online and look at all the scientific research done behind a medication that you are about to take. You simply put your faith in someone's work.
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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.
As I said previously ... We use our intelligence and do our own research to reach our conclusion and make choices based on free will - and in the end, we will be responsible for our choices.
Not everyone of the 7 billion will EVER become an Atheist, and not everyone of the 7 billion will become a believer.
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.
And all are equally valid. It is a personal choice. If one person has faith and God and another has faith in a giant unicorn made of Old Spice deodorant with Crown Royal for blood that lives on Mars, and can demonstrate true devotion to the giant unicorn made of Old Spice deodorant with Crown Royal for blood that lives on Mars, than the giant unicorn made of Old Spice deodorant with Crown Royal for blood that lives on Mars is just as valid as Jesus Christ. And I say this as a follower of Jesus Christ myself.
What. Is. Your. Point?
Honestly, that old argumentum ad absurdum is so easy to refute. Of all the "arguments" presented by anti-theists, the whole "muh flying spaghetti monster!" one is the easiest to knock down. One need only nod and say "okay, that's valid to if you actually believe it" and that "argument" is destroyed.
It is FAITH. It is not "proven" or "disproven" by any "factual" evidence or data. It is true or false on a personal level by conviction. Here is the real reason why Christ is valid as a figure of faith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariam..._Ibrahim_Ishag
If you can show me one person, JUST ONE, who would face death for their belief in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, than the Flying Spaghetti Monster would be just as valid as belief system as Jesus Christ.
Yeah...if you are like you and Mystic and simply label anything that you can see as 'God'. The bottle of water on my desk is 'God'...therefore God exists. Mind you don't operate heavy machinery with that kind of logic!
You seem to think that 'faith' is a good thing.
So why don't you believe in unicorns, mermaids and leprechauns. If you look under your bed and you don't see any evidence that there is an elephant living there, do you think.... 'Well there might be an elephant living here that is hiding the evidence of it's existence...' or do you conclude, based on the lack of evidence for an elephant, that there is no elephant there?
Then why don't you believe in the existence of Ganesh?
You can do the same with fairies....
1. Convince yourself that fairies exist.
2. Convince yourself that you really need the help of fairies to live your life.
3. Start looking for signs of fairies.
...you will find fairies every where.
Ummmm. One would not exist if one didn't have a great grandfather. See, for me to be here I would have to have had a father; my father would have to have had a father for him to have existed, that would be my grandfather; my grandfather would have to have had a father too and that would be my Great-grandfather. Got it?
That is not 'faith'. I get on the plane based on the verifiable evidence that 99.99999% of planes get to their destination. Now if I got on the plane expecting it to reach it's destination when the verifiable evidence is that planes do not reach their destination...THAT would be 'faith'.
Again...not faith but based on verifiable, testable evidence that modern medicines work.
Nope. If your examples are what you think 'faith' is then I would have to conclude that you actually have no idea of what 'faith' actually is.
Faith is a good thing and there are people who believe in fairies and have fairies as a central tenet of their religion, and their religion is just as valid as my Christian faith and is actually quite beautiful:
And it is actually very testable. It is testable on a personal level. It does not fit the criteria for scientific evidence, but that means nothing on the personal level. And yes, I believe in human freedom and not having one's life be enslaved by scientific data or Reason or any other form of slave-thought that restricts the individual human experience, so long as said individual human experience does not interfere with anyone else's individual human experience.
In short: if it works for you, and doesn't hurt anyone, it is your truth. Science, dogma and the opinions of the everyone from Richard Dawkins to the Pope to the douches at TMZ be damned.
Whether it requires evidence or not - you don't demand an evidence - you don't even go online and look at all the scientific research done behind a medication that you are about to take. You simply put your faith in someone's work.
As I said previously ... We use our intelligence and do our own research to reach our conclusion and make choices based on free will - and in the end, we will be responsible for our choices.
Not everyone of the 7 billion will EVER become an Atheist, and not everyone of the 7 billion will become a believer.
If you think about what you wrote, you will notice that we agree that science is never right.
No we are not saying the same thing. To make the claim that Science is NEVER right is purely ignorant.
Next time you use Technology that has been around for eons such as Airplanes, or undergo medical procedures that cure you, or take anitbiotioics that cure you then tell us again how science is NEVER right.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
That is the nature of science. It remains open to change if the empirical data warrant the acceptance of change.
No it's an evolving body of knowledge that works because it is always searching and looking for answers even to things we already know. Since you failed miserably on this simply request let's try again. Provide me again with a list of science discoveries that have completely been re-written over the past 200 years. Good luck with that. Sure new and improved discoveries have been made but the old discoveries serve as a foundation and are not completely annihilated as you are suggesting. You clearly know NOTHING about science or how it works.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
Heliocentrism was “proven” wrong,
Really? I suggest you go and look that up because you don't know what you are talking about. I think you meant to say that the Geocentric model was proven incorrect.
Based on ongoing observations of the motions of the planets, as well as previous theories from classical antiquity and the Islamic World, Copernicus’ proposed a model of the Universe where the Earth, the planets and the stars all revolved around the Sun. In so doing, he resolved the mathematical problems and inconsistencies arising out of the classic geocentric model and laid the foundations for modern astronomy.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
but then so were Newtonian mechanics,
Newton mechanics were not proven wrong...you are about the most scientifically illiterate poster I have ever come across besides Euse. BTW it's called Newtons Laws of Motion. Clearly you need to educate yourself. Newton's Laws
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
and the excitement about the LHC is at least partly based on the possibility that some of today’s widely held beliefs will have to be revised in the face of new data.
I don't think you know the first thing about the Large Hadron Collider.
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