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Once again, the point is if you want us to believe, you need to provide evidence. Very few atheists argue atheism MUST be true until further evidence is provided.
Not using this forum as evidence, Harry. You, Arq, phet, Diesel, et al. all play the provide evidence of God game here knowing that any attempt to answer using science will be bannred or infracted. Your annoyingly pointless suggestion to use the science forum is useless because any attempt to draw inferences about God from it would not be allowed there.
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For the shallow minded who like begging the question, maybe.
What is shallow-minded is expecting to justify a conclusion about an unknown as true that can NOT be empirically tested just because it satisfies your belief about it. All the evidence we have about our Reality can just as easily support theism as well as atheism.
I am always perplexed as to why there is a demand for evidence on matters of faith to begin with.
Then I am further perplexed that instead of ignoring the obvious bait, some people of faith jump in and start providing information which is not evidence. It goes nowhere.
It's simple indeed.
They convince themselves by trying to convince others.
Basic reverse psychology. That's how they maintain self conviction that their truth is truthier than others' truths.
That is a real problem, but fully knowing that, one would think that non-believers would stop asking for evidence from those types. What's the point?
Anyway, to contribute to the thread--
One thing I've asked non-believers about for which I've never gotten an answer is, "Don't you ever use your natural intuition to find an answer or guidance as to what to do in a given situation?"
I don't see a lot of difference between asking one's intuition and asking for the same guidance in the form of prayer to a deity or the Universe or the whatever it is to which one prays for guidance. (I'm not talking about vending-machine prayer here, wherein one asks for a specific outcome.)
This is an area where I see spirituality and science coming together. Are our prayers/intuitive requests and the answers we receive through those practices the results of an unseen force or forces, or are they some as-yet-unexplained mechanism in our brains that picks up information in ways outside of our normal information-gathering methods?
I've never seen that question but to answer; yes, I do. Not always of course, I try to use reasoning and logic as far as I can but sometimes I use intuition. Sometimes it even works out.
What I know of science is entirely supportive of my beliefs about God and I have seen no atheist use of science that would diminish that support. I certainly have not seen anything in science that would support a lack of belief in God, although that is a prevalent assumption by atheists.
Evidence is something that both people can see, it is obvious. If you look at the orthographic denotation of evidence, it is "to see."
Can you expand on that, elyn? An expert birder can identify a bird, its gender and age, merely by its call, the location and season. That is his evidence. Can another person who cannot id a chickadee if it sits on his head “see” the evidence the birder l”sees”?
You may say birding is a scientific method, but my point is no two people see the evidence the same way without training.
Spirituality requires training, and that training helps you see the evidence. Part of it is intuition.
Can you expand on that, elyn? An expert birder can identify a bird, its gender and age, merely by its call, the location and season. That is his evidence. Can another person who cannot id a chickadee if it sits on his head “see” the evidence the birder l”sees”?
You may say birding is a scientific method, but my point is no two people see the evidence the same way without training.
Spirituality requires training, and that training helps you see the evidence. Part of it is intuition.
Can you expand on that, elyn? An expert birder can identify a bird, its gender and age, merely by its call, the location and season. That is his evidence. Can another person who cannot id a chickadee if it sits on his head “see” the evidence the birder l”sees”?
You may say birding is a scientific method, but my point is no two people see the evidence the same way without training.
Spirituality requires training, and that training helps you see the evidence. Part of it is intuition.
But the second person could not argue that the chickadee is a cardinal (well, they could try, but they would be wrong). That's why it's a fact. They could truthfully say they don't know, but that doesn't alter the fact that there's a chickadee sitting on their head, whether they know what it is or not.
First, this 'no science' thing is constantly misunderstood (not to say misrepresented) by some.
Science (as a database of factual info. for drawing conclusions about what is knows and what isn't) is not up for re-evaluation or debunking (to make room for faith -claims) here. Let those who want to deny science argue it on the science forum (I bet that's a fun place to be ) and very good luck to them.
Here, the science is the basis of evidence and both theists and atheists should use it as it is, not as they would prefer it to be.
Which leads to 'evidence'. Faith is indeed the beginning and the end of the theist argument, but in between they would very much like scientific evidence to support their Faith -claims, because they know the credit -clout that science has, and they are both envious and resentful (a trait that I have also seen in Cult -apologetics) of how science just has to make a statement and it gets accepted. If only people would do that with Faith -claims
So Fiddlement. I won't go into the method and results of quotemining, misrepresentation and downright denial, but bear in mind that faddling of evidence to fit the Faith is the beginning and end of the Method, and you'll not go far wrong.
And bear in mind that if and when the faddled facts, appeal to Woo and using pre -Darwin scientists to prove that God is real, are shown without merit as evidence for a god, Faith is where they revert as a final denial. But they would much prefer evidence to back them up, if only it would.
It's simple indeed.
They convince themselves by trying to convince others.
Basic reverse psychology. That's how they maintain self conviction that their truth is truthier than others' truths.
Yes. I think it is an innate instinct to try to persuade the other person. Following the evidence rather than trying to lead it is a technique - one might even say a philosophy - that one has to learn, but it is a very rewarding one, even if it leaves you feeling like an alien species everywhere.
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Originally Posted by K12144
But the second person could not argue that the chickadee is a cardinal (well, they could try, but they would be wrong). That's why it's a fact. They could truthfully say they don't know, but that doesn't alter the fact that there's a chickadee sitting on their head, whether they know what it is or not.
That another good point. It is really about the 'humpty' fallacy. 'Words mean what I want them to mean'. Now a person who has not gone though the global scientific convention training of ornithology might well have their own name for a particular species. And that's ok, so long as the local name (plackquwacckett for the great crested mosquito) is a footnote in the science textbook that is used in science (1). This is a fairly sound convention for all that they keep changing their mind about what a brontosaurus is called. But what you don't do it call a Malaysian ringtailed Lemur "God" and then claim that God is real and atheism is false.
Which is what the Humpty fallacy does, and I suspect Dodgson was exposing that one can use words whichever way they want, but conventional usage is what they will have to use If they want to be (a) understood and (b) taken seriously.
(1) one of Arqs' Axioms: "There are many religions, there is only one science".
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-12-2020 at 09:34 PM..
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Science and Beliefs
) and very good luck to them.
