There is no evidence for GOD...but I believe anyway. (hell, church)

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by GoCardinals

And we also understand that "independent research" and "looking at signs of God" is -NOT- a scientific evidence.

So, there is something common between believers and non-believers.

What you may want to think about is that, you can say "I don't have faith", but it doesn't make sense when you say, "I don't have faith because there is no scientific evidence."

Now, look at the reciprocal - smokers very well know that there is irrefutable, undeniable, scientific evidence that smoking tobacco is injurious to health - YET they will smoke.

So an "evidence" really doesn't do anything for them.

What would you do if an evidence of God is proved to you?

Humans are contrary critters. We often do what we like rather than what we know is the better course. That does not alter the facts of the better course (assiming they are reliable). And what would you do if a Flat earth was proved to you? The analogy is watertight; it is actually highly improbable that this could ever be done, in the light of what we know, and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to how you lived your life, anyway.

[overcastg4]

Originally Posted by victorianpunk

Yes, there is no evidence for GOD.

The articles of evidence must each be properly defined. Why would materialistic definitions be chosen?

[BigCityDreamer]

Originally Posted by overcastg4

The articles of evidence must each be properly defined. Why would materialistic definitions be chosen?

Because God allegedly intervenes in the materialistic world.

That's the whole point and narrative of religion.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by overcastg4

The articles of evidence must each be properly defined. Why would materialistic definitions be chosen?

Because we can only rationally draw conclusions about the world we know of, the workings of which we partially understand. Phenomena that we know of but do not understand must wait for an explanations, tempting though it is to pop anthropomorphic mythology in there as a stopgap. Speculation and guesswork is of course no more than that. It is defeated even aside from not having any decent support, simply because there is no good reason to choose one speculation over another as being worthy of belief.

You will see that materialism is the only credible default alternative to knowing nothing and just making stuff up.

As B.C Dreamer says above. attempts to provide evidential support for a god either through the Bible or using the watchmaker argument have ailed to make a case. So it really is the case that all the evidence is for material processes, and little or no valid and sound evidence sticks up for the god -claim.

[victorianpunk]

Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer

Because God allegedly intervenes in the materialistic world.

That's the whole point and narrative of religion.

It depends on what you mean by "intervenes". God ANSWERS prayers, but that doesn't necessarily mean it changes the rules or does anything measurable all the time. Most of the time GOD simply provides the faithful with personal enrichment through the relationship they have, and not material effects.

[Arach Angle]

Originally Posted by victorianpunk

It depends on what you mean by "intervenes". God ANSWERS prayers, but that doesn't necessarily mean it changes the rules or does anything measurable all the time. Most of the time GOD simply provides the faithful with personal enrichment through the relationship they have, and not material effects.

this is fine.

Its just that the fund-eazly-fooled run about telling us all we must believe or die.

why is that?

[victorianpunk]

Originally Posted by Matadora

How so? The fact of the matter is Philosophy does not generate knowledge. Science generates knowledge.

What is knowledge? Only philosophy can answer that question. Hence science is dependent on philosophy.

Philosophy is incapable of addressing the truly fundamental questions about our existence. If you have not noticed, Science is making Philosophy obsolete.

Sorry, I was too busy laughing.

Philosophy answers a million questions science can't begin to approach.

Which is more important: equality or freedom? How does that relate to government? Is tyranny, if it provides people's material well-being, acceptable? Or is freedom with out any guarantees of material well being preferred?

All political discussion is philosophical, and science cannot approach those topics.

Or how about ethics? Is it okay to kill a person who is dying anyway to harvest their organs? Should we allow underage girls to have abortions without parental consent? Is it okay to kill someone for breaking into your house? Are white lies acceptable?

Or how about matters of metaphysical questions: is the universe real? Am I dreaming? How much of the world is a product of our collective minds and what is actually real?

All of these issues are impossible to approach through science, and any honest scientist would admit as such.

At one time Philosophy was merged with Science. Philosophy is merely a reflection on the knoweldge that we learn, but it does not generate knowledge.

Actually, new ideas keep coming up in philosophy all the time.

The knowledge about how the Universe works comes from Science.

And how do we know the universe exists at all?

The Philosophers can talk about it and think about all they want and maybe even add insight, but at the end of the day they don't generate knowledge. In this sense, once Philosophy became divorced from Science...i.e. once Philosophy separated out on it's own, Science became Natural Science and Philosophy remained Philosophy. At this point Philosophy started becoming marginalized and it's been more and more marginalized ever since.

Ahh...someone has not been paying attention to the world recently.

There is this big event in the United States called "an election" in which we're seeing philosophies thought dead re-emerge. Not to mention that in the business world, philosophy is as important as math and maybe even more important than natural sciences, at least in the management end of things:

The Unexpected Way Philosophy Majors Are Changing The World Of Business

Of course Philosophers are not thrilled with this fact, but it's just a fact!

Facts can be interrupted different ways. For example: a city has a shrinking poverty rate. First, what is poverty? Is material wealth alone enough to measure? The nation of Bhutan began focusing on "gross domestic happiness" as opposed to "gross domestic product" for example. Can science prove which one is more important?

And let's say some metric is agreed upon to measure "poverty" (again, science can't do that because it can't answer "what is poverty?") and a city has a shrinking poverty rate. Is that a good thing? If you say yes, think of it this way: is it just the poor people being squeezed out and replaced with others, or are they moving up? And if it is the former, is that necessarily a bad thing or a good thing?

One of the many countless issues societies deal with that natural science is helpless to address

Take a good look around this globe...are you impressed with what you see? Are you impressed with the dumbed down Americans? Are you impressed that 1 in 4 Americans don't know Earth Orbits the Sun and some still think that the Earth is flat and half think Evolution is false? These are the same folks who are climate deniers. Does that impress you?

Citation needed. And can science tell you or me if that information is good or bad, if it is true?

It's clear that people who have scientific knowledge about the Universe and the world that we live in are the kind of people who are better equipped to make informed positive changes to society.

This use to be "cutting edge science." Were these people "equipped to make informed positive changes to society"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

You clearly don't understand what science is about.

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

Contemporary science is typically subdivided into the natural sciences, which study the material world; the social sciences, which study people and societies; and the formal sciences, such as mathematics. The formal sciences are often excluded as they do not depend on empirical observations. Disciplines which use science like engineering and medicine may also be considered to be applied sciences.

First, you clearly don't understand philosophy. Second, math is not science:

"On the other hand, most mathematicians do not consider themselves to be scientists and vice versa. So is mathematics a natural science? (2) The natural sciences investigate the physical universe but mathematics does not, so mathematics is not really a natural science. This leaves open the subtler question of whether mathematics is essentially similar in method to the natural sciences in spite of the difference in subject matter. I do not think it is."

Source: A PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS: Is mathematics a science?




In short, science is a limited way of understanding the natural world and nothing else. So many people in recent years betray science by saying it can do things it cannot. This is called by sociologists "scientism", basically turning science into an all-powerful oracle with pseudo-godlike powers.

This is why Professor Stephen J Gould, agnostic and consider by many to be the greatest paleontologists of all time, named the idea of "non-overlapping magisteria". Basically it is an understanding that only a fool would use religion to comment on science or science to comment on religion or science to comment on art, music, philosophy etc.

These are separate circles of existence and operate in different paradigms.

[PanTerra]

Originally Posted by GoCardinals

Believing in God is FAITH - that one forms after doing his own independent research to find the signs of God.

What's the value of FAITH if it's based on evidence? It's not faith anymore. Simple as that.

Kind of funny that is. "Creation Science" was developed solely because people while priding themselves on having faith, also wanted science to substantiate it. Relying on shoddy science to substantiate your faith brings into question your faith, as well as your integrity as a scientist.

[victorianpunk]

Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer

If you take away the literal understanding of Genesis, then that means that humans were not created in the image of God and there's no such thing as original sin.

Therefore, there's no need for a Christ or Son of God to save us from our sins.

Actually, ditching the literal understanding for Genesis makes original sin more clearly defined. How?

What is Genesis at its core? It is the beginning of our species, and it tells a true story by using fantastic allegory.

In the beginning, there were very few humans (Adam and Eve) with a very small gene pool (two people) and they lived in a garden, meaning they ate what they found and picked but didn't grow food (hunter-gatherers) Then they ate from the tree of knowledge (advanced) and were thrown from the garden and forced to till the land (switch from hunting and gathering to agriculture)

Or it could be seen as an allegory for our leaving the realm of pure animal and becoming sentient, at which point our sentience IS original sin. Think about it: with sentience comes the understanding of Good and Evil and ethical systems beyond that of any other animal. And that sentience is a burden. Hence, we are exiled from Eden and forced to live as humans...in the Lands East of Eden (civilization)

That is original sin: we defy the natural world (God) by understanding ourselves and our world through sentience, and that causes internal and external conflicts and removes us from primordial oneness with GOD.

I am a Gnostic, and for me "original sin" is the moment in which people started questioning reality and seeking that which is forbidden by Satan (the worldly) and sought understanding that transcends the day-to-day. We believe Eve was the first prophet and the snake was sent from GOD, and the GOD of the garden is Satan (as is the God of most of the OT) So there is no original sin, but rather an original virtue.

But again, we don't take the myths literally.

Do you see how troublesome it becomes once you go down that road?

The "trouble" is this: it makes it hard to be lazy. It is very easy to just read something and say "I get it, it is what it says and says what it is," but a lot harder to read and then have to interpret something, or look into other interpretations and try to find understanding.

Ironically, this is why so many science majors crash and burn in courses on philosophy and religion: unlike natural sciences, one has to do more than read and understand facts and figures but has to come up with ten words in their head to understand every single word on the page, and then put into words the meaning of what they just read for a professor.

Interpreting the book of Genesis or Rigveda is a lot harder for many than just memorizing formulas or figuring out the chemical composition of swamp gas.

And likewise your average literalist is indeed not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It is easier to just believe words directly than have to actually *gasp!* think about their meaning.

[GoCardinals]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

Humans are contrary critters. We often do what we like rather than what we know is the better course. That does not alter the facts of the better course (assiming they are reliable). And what would you do if a Flat earth was proved to you? The analogy is watertight; it is actually highly improbable that this could ever be done, in the light of what we know, and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to how you lived your life, anyway.

"in the light of what we know"
I think this is the best line.

You will perhaps look at the things slightly differently and perhaps it may bring some humbleness to you if you include this in what you know.

"there is always someone who knows more than me"