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I - for one - evaluate evidence based on it's ability to support the proposition. My personal liking never comes into it. YMMV of course but do not assume that means other people function like you do. My own evaluation that there is currently _no_ evidence that there is a god is because I have not been shown any evidence there is a god. It is not that I have been shown it and I personally disliked it.
You cannot define what would constitute an evidence of God.
And then you don't have the knowledge (as a human) to verify and validate the evidence.
Here is an example.
You ask me to provide you with the evidence of an airplane.
And I tell you, "Man, forget the evidence. I will show you an airplane. So I take you to a hanger and show you an airplane.
Now, do you have a choice NOT to believe in the existence of an airplane?
Now you ask a Hindu person, show me the evidence of God.
And he tells you, "Man, forget the evidence. Let me show you the God.
So he takes you to a temple and shows you a statue with a human head, an elephant trunk, 6 arms and 4 legs.
And tells you, here is God.
Now, do you have an excuse not to believe in the existence of God?
So next time you ask a Hindu Person to show you the evidence of God, you would be left with no choice but to become a Hindu.
Now, you may come back to me and say, "OHH NO NO NO, I wanted the evidence of Abrahamic God".
So we come back to my original question - define to us, what will you constitute as an EVIDENCE of Abrahamic God?
If you say, stuff like, the entire world misery ends over night, or the water in my glass turns into wine (TRANSPONDER'S favorite) - or a ghostly figure appears in the sky, then are there two problems with it.
First, you are not asking for evidence. You are asking for miracles, and you should have some shame for it. Because those who believe in scientific evidence do not and should not believe and demand "miracles" as evidences, because you can't prove miracles with scientific knowledge. If you could, then it's not a miracle anymore.
Second, say, all world's misery ends over night, the water turns into wine and the ghostly figure appears in the sky. Tell us how are you going to verify and validate that it was all done by God and the ghostly figure appeared in the sky is actually God?
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Sure - but anyone else can say the same nonsense too. For example if you want to beleive the government are specifically following you and spying on you - you will see signs of that too if you look for it. You will suddenly notice the occasional camera pointed specifically in your direction. Random pedestrians or people in public will be sitting looking right at you.
Perhaps this is why we are given the tools such as "intelligence", "Logic", "reasoning".
We should evaluate the signs based on the these tools during our quest, and then either reject or accept the signs. We are responsible for the choices we are making.
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So the question becomes - given there are millions of things you can believe first and find "signs" for later - why is it most people appear capable of believing _one_ of them and dismissing the rest as evidence devoid nonsense? Is it not weird that the people who espouse the idea of faith and finding signs - absolutely balk at the nonsense of it when evaluating someone _elses_ pet beliefs? That people espousing this approach - abjectly refuse it except when it suits them? _That_ is the very definition of bias, agenda, and confirmation seeking. Not faith, but fallacy.
Same thing with a Picasso's painting. One would pay 10 of millions of dollars for it - others may look at it as some piece of an ugly attempt on pornographic sketches on canvas that's not worth taking a second look.
Neither party has any evidence. Both have choices, opinions and believes.
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Speak for yourself. I do not choose what to believe. I am helplessly compelled to beliefs by strong evidence - and left entirely devoid of a belief in the face of a lack of any evidence. I never once in my entire life chose to not believe there is a god. I simply am unable to believe it in the face of not a single reason offered to do so.
There are MANY things (besides religion) that you believe and have faith WITHOUT verifying the evidence by yourself. You are just not ready to accept it.
Here is an example,
The doctor prescribes you a certain medication that you never took before to address a certain condition.
You look at the ingredients.
Do you put the pill under a microscope and verify that it has it all what it the label states? Do you even have knowledge to know and then verify the chemical structure of different compounds in that pill?
And then do you participate in the manufacturer's trials to see if the medicine actually works? Do you participate in the FDA's approval process to see if it has passed the inspections?
Do you have a mouse lab in your basement where you could test the medicine by yourself before believing it works?
The answer is, NO, NO, NO, conclusively.
Why because, you have faith in the doctor, you have faith in the manufacturer and you have faith in FDA.
How did you develop this faith, it's a different story.
But you do PRACTICE FAITH without caring or verifying and evaluating the "evidence and claims" by yourself outside the religious doctrine. You can deny as much as you want, but Oh yes, you do.
As I stated before, whether God exists or not, we don't really "know" the answer - Some of us have faith and some of us don't.
Things in nature are based on probability. And there is a good probability in my opinion, that we will know the answer when the clocks stops clicking on us and last curtain falls on our eyes.
You cannot define what would constitute an evidence of God. And then you don't have the knowledge (as a human) to verify and validate the evidence.
Nor should I. Only the person making a claim should be doing that. I could not define what would constitute evidence for the Higgs Boson many years ago either. Now I can because the scientists claiming it existed explained what the evidence would be - why - and then went and found it.
That is how it works. The person making the claim explains what the evidence is and why the evidence is evidence. Then everyone else evaluates those claims. If you think there is a god _you_ tell us what the evidence is for that claim. Then we can evaluate it when - after all these years posting here - you finally present some.
As for your claim that I can not validate the evidence - until you present some there is no way for you to make that claims. You are just assuming/asserting.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
Now, do you have an excuse not to believe in the existence of God?
That is more a matter of linguistic definitions and not evidence. He has a statue - he is defining the word "god" to mean that statue - and "hinduism" as beleiving that statue exists - and therefore god exists and I am a hindu. However hindus are _not_ making the claim you describe that the statue exists - but that the entity that the statue represents actually exists. And therefore no - taking me statue viewing is not evidence their god exists or a reason to describe myself as hindu.
I have defined the word "splippy-splooobily" to mean the apple on my desk. So yes - "splippy-splooobily" exists!
So you are definition shifting here - and not at all addressing what the majority of people mean by "god" which is almost ubiquitously an entity that is not human - but is conscious, intentional, makes and executes plans, and engages with our universe under moral laws. So your analogy simply fails comically here.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
Perhaps this is why we are given the tools such as "intelligence", "Logic", "reasoning". We should evaluate the signs based on the these tools during our quest, and then either reject or accept the signs. We are responsible for the choices we are making. Same thing with a Picasso's painting. One would pay 10 of millions of dollars for it - others may look at it as some piece of an ugly attempt on pornographic sketches on canvas that's not worth taking a second look. Neither party has any evidence. Both have choices, opinions and believes.
Making my point for me. Yes they "should" evaluate the signs - but many people are not doing that. Rather what they are doing is choosing to accept the signs for the thing they personally have faith in and rejecting the signs for the _multitude_ of other stuff they do not. And that is the very definition of confirmation bias. When you apply a methodology to one thing that you deny every other - you are biased. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The analogy to art fails however as that is something entirely different. That is subjective response to how an art form affects you. Which are very real things. There is no claim one has to make without evidence in order to appreciate - or fail to appreciate - a work of art. The art exists. You exist. The interaction between the two exists. And your subjective response to that interaction exists. _None_ of which is comparable to seeing signs supporting what you want to accept signs for - and rejecting them for truth claims you do not accept.
And in fact despite many years of people telling me it would never and could never happen - we are now even making massive and interesting inroads in science to create a scientific explanation for the appreciation of art. For years I was told by theists that "Science will never explain art" or "Science can never explain love" and so on. Yet now we are doing _exactly_ that.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
There are MANY things (besides religion) that you believe and have faith WITHOUT verifying the evidence by yourself. You are just not ready to accept it.
Speak for yourself - but you are once again putting words and ideas in my mouth and claiming they are mine. I am currently unaware of a single think I believe without evidence. By all means demonstrate your psychic abilities and reach into my brain and tell me what they are therefore. Or just admit you are happy to simply make things up about me as and when it suits your narrative.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
Here is an example, the doctor prescribes you a certain medication that you never took before to address a certain condition. You look at the ingredients. Do you put the pill under a microscope and verify that it has it all what it the label states? Do you even have knowledge to know and then verify the chemical structure of different compounds in that pill? And then do you participate in the manufacturer's trials to see if the medicine actually works? Do you participate in the FDA's approval process to see if it has passed the inspections? Do you have a mouse lab in your basement where you could test the medicine by yourself before believing it works? The answer is, NO, NO, NO, conclusively. Why because, you have faith in the doctor, you have faith in the manufacturer and you have faith in FDA.
Well actually you have asked _exactly_ the wrong person this question because epidemiology and the assesment of the efficacy of drugs and their effects is wandering straight into my field. So I infact _am_ someone who will verify drugs in many of the ways you just listed. Kinda shot yourself in the foot and stuck the bloody appendage into your own mouth there with that one I am afraid.
That said though - even if I had not - you are making a blatant demonstration of your lack of knowledge about evidence. Because one is not required to microscope a drug _or_ to have faith. Rather one can have knowledge of the processes - read the peer reviewed research on a drug - and evaluate what it does and does not do.
And no even then I do not have "faith" in what the drug does or contains. Rather I make a probability judgement based on what the claims made are when a drug is perscribed to me - what my conditions are - what the probabilities are that the drug offered will be what it claims and do what it claims - and I choose based on all that evidence whether to the drug or not and _observe the effects for myself_.
And in fact quite often I have rejected a prescription offered to me - either to the doctors face or later by choosing not to follow the prescription up and to seek a new doctor - based on the evidence that was and was not available to me. I absolutely have _no_ faith in the FDA and much of the processes because I happen to know how those processes work. And right now many of them are simply _broken_. Seriously and badly broken. As you are someone who seemingly knows next to nothing about the field - the best thing I can suggest to you is alleviate some of that ignorance by reading the books "Bad Science" and "Bad pharma" by Ben Goldacre. They are wonderful books in communicating the current processes - and the problems with the processes - to the complete lay person like yourself.
So no - just like every other attempt to put words and ideas and thoughts into my mouth that suit _you_ for me to hold when I in fact do not - you have managed to get it _exactly_ wrong here. Again.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
How did you develop this faith, it's a different story. But you do PRACTICE FAITH without caring or verifying and evaluating the "evidence and claims" by yourself outside the religious doctrine. You can deny as much as you want, but Oh yes, you do.
Except no I do not - and your attempts to imagine I do have thus far been spectacular fails. So once again I can only offer you the adult advice that you start telling us what _your_ position is rather than make post after post attempting - and comically failing - to tell me what mine are.
You have to be convinced. The psychology behind what convinces people is somewhat complicated, but you can't just wake up one morning and decide to believe in God ... any more than YOU could get up and decide to stop believing.
Yes, to some extent I do agree. But then many other things work in the same way.
You originate from India, so perhaps you may understand this better.
The kid doesn't wake up in the morning and decides to become a doctor or an engineer.
The parents contentiously push and convince him/her to place importance on academics.
So you are saying the parents shouldn't tell their kids as what's beneficial for them and what's not? They should not put any emphasis on kid's academics or take him to gym?
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I never understood why certain believers keep maintaining that we choose what to believe in and then insist that it's a one-way street. Oh, atheists could choose to believe in God if they wanted to, but believers simply can't choose not to believe.
In my personal opinion, it should start from looking at the skies and see the design in nature. The formation of stars, the motion and paths in our solar system etc.
If one's mind tells him that everything in nature came together all by itself then good for him.
If one's mind tells him that there is probability a designer, a creator, and/or a force that has put this together then he should try to dig deeper and try to find out who or what is it behind all this?
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Which would make religion a sort of Roach Motel that, once you choose to enter into it, you can't get out again.
This is a broader statement - which again, can be held valid for many other scenarios, and many other things we do.
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Though we know that isn't true because most atheists are former Christians.
Yes, I have noticed the same, many Atheists are former Christians - which is kinda raises the question as to why they believe that if the concept of God, as presented in the Christian doctrine does not sit well with their intelligence, logic and reasoning, then there is no God at all.
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As for actually relying on "signs" of the divine, that's nothing but a gullibility test. The human brain is very good at seeing patterns. Couple that with how the brain abhors chaos and randomness, it means the brain literally forces or superimposes patterns onto chaos and randomness that simply don't exist. Unfortunatly, this is why something so mundane as a vaguely human-shaped stain on the cement or simply surviving a car accident are often touted as signs of God's existence. It's an illusion at best, a delusion at worst.
so you do agree that human brain is good at seeing patterns. Do you see any patterns in the formation of stars and how they are placed? If yes, please read the blue text again.
In my personal opinion, it should start from looking at the skies and see the design in nature. The formation of stars, the motion and paths in our solar system etc.
See there you already build the agenda and bias into the system. You are not recommending someone look to the skies and ask questions. But look to the skies already deciding what to find there - in this case "design in nature".
So you are demonstrating the very agenda, bias and narrative that I am describing. I can not name another person so intent on making my points for me on any forum to be honest as you here today.
So I would say no - no one should look to the skies and see the design in nature. What they should do is look around them _and_ at the skies and ask "Is there any reason to think there is design behind what I observe?".
And so far the answer to that question is no. No one - certainly not you here today - is showing us a reason to think there is design there. And since you have so much trouble trying to come up with not just evidence for a god - but what would constitute evidence for a god - actually evidencing "design" would very much be evidence for a god. Design implies a designer! I just do not assume the designer like you might perhaps want.
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Originally Posted by GoCardinals
If one's mind tells him that there is probability a designer, a creator, and/or a force that has put this together then he should try to dig deeper and try to find out who or what is it behind all this?
Well no. I am happy to accept the "possibility" there is a designer. But the next step then is to ascertain if there is any reason to actually think there is one. And _then_ find out who or what it is. What you recommend here is to bypass step 2 and jump straight from step 1 to step 3. No. Thank. You. Not gonna happen.
I appreciate the honest answer (or at least the honest effort to answer!). But I fear we are talking apples and oranges.
As others have already noted, that list, with few exceptions, consists of things that are inventions of religion. This creates a circular argument and/or self-fulfilling mission. Science can help us understand how the human body works, how the solar system works, how crops grow, how the oceans rise, etc, etc... but no one (a) thinks that science (or the humans who do science) created those things, or (b) questions whether they exist. By contrast, there is (and should be) much debate over the existence of most things on your list. In the absence of any evidence, it is a fair conclusion (or at least a fair starting point) that things like angels, souls, divine beings, everlasting life, reincarnation, prayer, etc.... are inventions of religion (or, to maintain the parallel, "the humans who do religion"). There is no doubt or debate that holy books exist, but also no doubt where they came from, so that's even more of a circular argument.
Science and religion have different purposes, that much is clear. But a lot of that traces back to the "objects of their attention"... apples to oranges.
it is precisely because a person or group denies something exists which makes that person or group inadequate to address the areas listed. That was the point being made, that there are areas that religion is better equipped to address than science.
Now you ask a Hindu person, show me the evidence of God.
And he tells you, "Man, forget the evidence. Let me show you the God.
So he takes you to a temple and shows you a statue with a human head, an elephant trunk, 6 arms and 4 legs.
And tells you, here is God.
Now, do you have an excuse not to believe in the existence of God?
So next time you ask a Hindu Person to show you the evidence of God, you would be left with no choice but to become a Hindu.
A man-made statue is evidence that a god exists? Why then are you not a Hindu?
religion is better equipped to address, for example, building and nurturing a relationship with the Divine; prayer; nourishing our soul; viewing and living every part of daily life as sacred and holy; reincarnation process and role; angels and other non-physical beings; partnership of an eternal non-physical soul housed within a temporary physical human body; understanding holy books; symbolism, allusion, exegesis, explication, imagery and hermeneutics. Those are a few examples.
Sure religion is better equipped to address...building and nurturing a relationship with the divine..."
Not that there is any conclusive that there is a "divine". After all, throughout the history of mankind there have always been various "divines", virtually all of whom have eventually been discarded by society...as will the current "divine" at some point in the future.
Buddhism gets along with "rebirth" very well without relying on a "divine".
it is precisely because a person or group denies something exists which makes that person or group inadequate to address the areas listed. That was the point being made, that there are areas that religion is better equipped to address than science.
Yes, religion is best equipped to address those imaginary things which religion invented. Agreed. But, what is the value of that?
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