Searching for GOD...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

That really isn't the point, is it? If your god exists, it is still hiding from most people in the world: whichever god(s) you believe in, the majority of people think you are wrong.

If a god does exist, wants to make itself known, and has the ability to do so, there is no reason why it shouldn't be obvious to everyone, including those of us who like to base their beliefs on objective evidence and/or sound reasoning.

How does most people believing in God help atheism?

[Stranger]

How does most people believing in God help atheism?

Perhaps you should actually read the conversation (or at the very least the post you're going to reply to) before jumping in? Most people don't believe in "God" - they believe in all sorts of different gods - not to mention other baseless superstitions.

If one of these gods is real, it's doing a great job of hiding - even from those who are prepared to believe stuff without objective evidence or sound reasoning.

[torridon]

But God has not hidden Himself from us.  He made Himself known through Jesus, and continues to make Himself known through the power of the Holy Spirit.  It may not be the way you would imagine Him to do it, but you are not God.

That hardly answers the question.

If the reality we perceive is a false artificial construction and the 'real' reality is hidden or obscured for some reason, why would that be ?  Why all the artifice and trickery ?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

All claims I don't doubt you sincerely believe to be true. Can you think of a single cogent reason for anyone else to think you're right though?

I have made my reasons quite plain, and there are millions of other people who have found reasons to believe.  If you wanted to believe, you too may discover reasons to believe.  And I know of some who did not want to believe, but found reasons which changed their mind.

[Alan Burns]

That hardly answers the question.

If the reality we perceive is a false artificial construction and the 'real' reality is hidden or obscured for some reason, why would that be ?  Why all the artifice and trickery ?

The reality I perceive is all God's creation, in particular myself.

[Stranger]

I have made my reasons quite plain...

The problem being that none of those 'reasons' stand up to the slightest bit of logical scrutiny.

...and there are millions of other people who have found reasons to believe.

Many millions more have found 'reasons' to believe in different gods or none at all. Once again: why is your god hiding?

If you wanted to believe, you too may discover reasons to believe.

Which indicates again that your god (if it exists) is playing silly hide-and-seek games.

The reality I perceive is all God's creation, in particular myself.

Which doesn't answer the question. Once again, we find you dodging all the serious questions...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I have made my reasons quite plain…

But your reasons turn out to be very bad arguments and assertions of personal faith. Why then should anyone else take them seriously?

…and there are millions of other people who have found reasons to believe.

First that’s just a repetition of the argumentum ad populum fallacy, and second it’s not true in any case – “millions of other people” believe in countless different gods. What makes those gods the wrong ones and your god the right one?

If you wanted to believe…

If you “wanted to believe” then you would have pre-judged there being something to believe in and so would risk falling prey to any manner of biases to confirm what you already wanted to be true.

…you too may discover reasons to believe.

But only bad ones. Wanting to believe doesn’t in some way make bad reasons into good ones.
 

And I know of some who did not want to believe, but found reasons which changed their mind.

No doubt the same is true for every other faith belief too. Changing your mind for bad reasons doesn’t though help you, and nor do anecdotes constitute data by the way. 

So, rather than keep prevaricating why not finally try to answer the questions you’re actually asked?

[torridon]

The reality I perceive is all God's creation, in particular myself.

Make your mind up; one moment you are claiming there is another reality behind our apparent reality that can be found by searching; next moment it is apparent and obvious and everywhere. 

I can see things, I can perceive myself, I can perceive rabbits and robins and tardigrades (well, with a microscope), but I haven't spotted a god anywhere, so I don't buy your claim that such is obvious and everywhere.  So you're left with a hidden realm of reality that is behind some sort of closed curtain, so then you are left with the bizarre notion of a god fitting things up like this to deceive us; this is not compatible with other claims about the divine.

It's not rocket science, your claims just don't stack up.

[Alan Burns]

If the reality we perceive is a false artificial construction and the 'real' reality is hidden or obscured for some reason, why would that be ?  Why all the artifice and trickery ?

There is nothing false or artificial in the reality we perceive.  But we must recognise the limitations of what can be directly perceived by our physical senses or man made contraptions.  Our human minds have an insight into the fact that there is more to reality than we can physically perceive.  If we limit our concept of reality to what we can physically perceive, we will be liable to come to false conclusions.  And if we drive our own imaginations to try to discover any hidden reality we would also inevitably end up with false conclusions.  All we have left is to allow God to make known to us the true reality which we are destined for.

[Stranger]

There is nothing false or artificial in the reality we perceive.  But we must recognise the limitations of what can be directly perceived by our physical senses or man made contraptions.  Our human minds have an insight into the fact that there is more to reality than we can physically perceive.  If we limit our concept of reality to what we can physically perceive, we will be liable to come to false conclusions.  And if we drive our own imaginations to try to discover any hidden reality we would also inevitably end up with false conclusions.

What a lot of unexplained and unsupported assertions...

All we have left is to allow God to make known to us the true reality which we are destined for.

Begging the question fallacy. First we need to establish that there is a god. We cannot assume that there is a god in order to establish that there is a god. Which brings us right back to the latest question that you keep ignoring: why isn't your god obvious to everybody? Why would it be playing silly hide-and-seek games?

[Walter]

alan has been confused by the film The Wizard of Oz I think

[torridon]

There is nothing false or artificial in the reality we perceive.  But we must recognise the limitations of what can be directly perceived by our physical senses or man made contraptions.  Our human minds have an insight into the fact that there is more to reality than we can physically perceive.  If we limit our concept of reality to what we can physically perceive, we will be liable to come to false conclusions.  And if we drive our own imaginations to try to discover any hidden reality we would also inevitably end up with false conclusions.

We know our senses are limited because we have been able to build machines that are not so limited; they reveal for instance that our visual sense can perceive only a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum.  So we know that there is an awful lot more out there that we cannot perceive directly.  But the stuff you talk about, like souls, has not even been glimpsed with our most powerful machines like the LHC.  So I don't buy the idea that God built us with limited senses out of some sort of cost/benefit rationale.  He would have made it so that this other reality is completely inaccessible to us.  Why would he do that to us ?

[torridon]

All we have left is to allow God to make known to us the true reality which we are destined for.

So have you written to CERN explaining this to them ? With guidance from God they would be able to calibrate their detectors to find the correct energy levels to detect souls.  it would be a bigger find than the Higgs and you would be a hero, and we could all congratulate you on being right all along.

[Gordon]

All we have left is to allow God to make known to us the true reality which we are destined for.

How would you know, as opposed to believe, any such revelations to be true?

[SusanDoris]

AB

Please have the courtesy to reply directly to torridon's #26762.
Do not simply state one of your bland speculations.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Susan,

Please have the courtesy to reply directly to torridon's #26762.

Do not simply state one of your bland speculations.

He never will. AB’s approach is as follows:

1. Assert a faith belief as if it's a fact

2. When asked why he thinks it’s a fact, make one (or several) very bad arguments to validate it

3. Receive logically coherent rebuttals

4. Ignore the rebuttals and repeat the very bad arguments

5. Receive more rebuttals

6. Concede that his arguments may not be “watertight”

7. Have explained to him that the problem isn’t that they’re not watertight, it’s that they’re flat wrong

8. Repeat Step 1

And on and on it goes.

Ah well eh?

[ippy]

The reality I perceive is all God's creation, in particular myself.

What is the word for this condition, now let me think?

The  of necessarily very kindest of regards to you Alan, ippy

[Alan Burns]

So have you written to CERN explaining this to them ? With guidance from God they would be able to calibrate their detectors to find the correct energy levels to detect souls.  it would be a bigger find than the Higgs and you would be a hero, and we could all congratulate you on being right all along.

No one can detect gravity or what it comprises.  But we know it exists because of the affect it has on material elements.  Similarly with spiritual entities such as souls.  We can't detect them directly, but we know they exist because they can impart conscious acts of will on an otherwise physically deterministic universe.

[torridon]

No one can detect gravity or what it comprises.  But we know it exists because of the affect it has on material elements.  Similarly with spiritual entities such as souls.  We can't detect them directly, but we know they exist because they can impart conscious acts of will on an otherwise physically deterministic universe.

What a microcosm of sloppy thinking, bad analogies and circular beliefs that was.  Of course we can detect gravity, anyone can go online and buy a gravity meter at Amazon right now.  There is nothing supernatural about gravity just because we are still arguing about how best to conceptualise it.  Souls, however, are different.  Go on Amazon and see how many soul-meters you can find on sale.  You won't find any, probably because of the same reason that CERN would be unable to detect them.  They don't exist, that is why they are hard to detect.  The only reason you can come up with for their existence is by reference to another slice from your cornucopia of irrational fantasy beliefs, free will.  I've lost count of the number of times that Stranger and others have demonstrated how 'conscious will' is entirely consistent with a deterministic universe, and your particular conceptualisation of free will is fundamentally irrational anyway.  Having such persistent irrational thoughts is not a good place to be, and if that is where searching for god gets you I think it should come with a government health warning.

[SusanDoris]

What a microcosm of sloppy thinking, bad analogies and circular beliefs that was.  Of course we can detect gravity, anyone can go online and buy a gravity meter at Amazon right now.  There is nothing supernatural about gravity just because we are still arguing about how best to conceptualise it.  Souls, however, are different.  Go on Amazon and see how many soul-meters you can find on sale.  You won't find any, probably because of the same reason that CERN would be unable to detect them.  They don't exist, that is why they are hard to detect.  The only reason you can come up with for their existence is by reference to another slice from your cornucopia of irrational fantasy beliefs, free will.  I've lost count of the number of times that Stranger and others have demonstrated how 'conscious will' is entirely consistent with a deterministic universe, and your particular conceptualisation of free will is fundamentally irrational anyway.  Having such persistent irrational thoughts is not a good place to be, and if that is where searching for god gets you I think it should come with a government health warning.

Well said, indeed. But AB's woolly, saccharine desperately predictable thinking will no doubt be trotted out as usual.

[Stranger]

No one can detect gravity or what it comprises.  But we know it exists because of the affect it has on material elements.

Everybody can detect gravity. What's more we have an extremely well tested theory of (space-time and) gravity that makes extremely accurate predictions.

Similarly with spiritual entities such as souls.  We can't detect them directly, but we know they exist because they can impart conscious acts of will on an otherwise physically deterministic universe.

Shameless circular reasoning with a side helping of magical fantasy.

What we have is people making choices and all the evidence is that they do so using their physical brains; there is no evidence whatsoever of anything else being involved. There is also no evidence whatsoever that "conscious acts of will" are not deterministic (true randomness being the only alternative, as has been explained multiple times).

[Alan Burns]

What a microcosm of sloppy thinking, bad analogies and circular beliefs that was.  Of course we can detect gravity, anyone can go online and buy a gravity meter at Amazon right now.

You can detect the presence of gravity by its effect on material elements, but not gravity itself.

[Maeght]

You can detect the presence of gravity by its effect on material elements, but not gravity itself.

That's what gravity is, the effect.

[Alan Burns]

There is nothing supernatural about gravity ....

I did not imply there was anything supernatural about gravity.  I was just pointing out that we do not have the ability to detect what it is, and we only know it is there by its effect on material.  I used this to highlight the limitations of our human senses.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I did not imply there was anything supernatural about gravity.  I was just pointing out that we do not have the ability to detect what it is, and we only know it is there by its effect on material.  I used this to highlight the limitations of our human senses.

An already open door you've pushed on many times. No-one needs to have highlighted that there are "limitations of our human senses" as you put it. That doesn't though mean that you just get to identify one possible unknown as "God" and insist that you're right about that. If not for "human senses", logic, something other than your personal faith faith on the matter all you have is guessing. And guessing, as you should now by now, is epistemically worthless.