Searching for GOD...

[Enki]

One has no evidence, the other has evidence. It is that simple.

The problem is that you are prejudicing your deliberations by trying to say in advance what the nature of the evidence should be, i.e. it must be objective.

if you are in a relationship, what objective evidence do you have that your partner loves you?

To take your last sentence. you have none at all. All you have is trust based upon what you feel, and their behaviour towards you. At least however, you can verify objectively that the person exists.


So, if you are in a relationship with God, what evidence do you have that God loves you. None at all. You can't even verify that this entity actually exists. All you have is trust based upon what you feel.

[Stranger]

And there's your first problem Stranger...

There are things in this world that cannot be tested in this way, but human beings appear to have no problem in the main dealing with them, e.g. love. I'd like to know how many people who are in a relationship have some sort of 'sliding scale' with which to measure empirically the love of their partner.

This is a totally different type of problem and it isn't even as if it's devoid of actual intersubjective evidence anyway. There is copious evidence that people exist and all but universal, documented acknowledgement, that states of mind that correspond to the rather vague description of 'love' exist.

With gods - you are faced with the problem of giving reasons to think that at least one of the god concepts corresponds to something real and external to human minds and experiences.

I'm simply not seeing that in anything you've said. So once again: how do you think this can be tested or how do you think we might deduce it logically?

And all that is quite apart from the bizarre situation as regards to most of the Christian gods (among others) who supposedly are just and fair and have important messages for us so that we can make vital decisions and yet are hiding the reality of both their existence and the content of their message (or allowing them to be hidden) - which is totally contradictory. Why wouldn't they make themselves and thier message obvious to all? How can it be just a fair to hide?

[Maeght]

Maeght #27640. Here's another example of a violation. SusanDoris very rarely expresses her disagreement about the content of a post. She prefers to make pejorative comments about the poster. I've seen it with Alan Burns, Vlad and Gabriella.

It still hasn't occurred to her despite her age that the truth or otherwise of what a poster writes is not affected by any alleged style of the post or the poster. The fact that she has to resort to this tactic is indicative of the fact that she cannot (or chooses not to) defend her position.
You really want to be confessing your relativist approach to truth?

Isn't saying she prefers one posters posts or anothers due to the posting style rather than the content though?

[Nearly Sane]

Not all relationships work out. After all it is a question of what we want. I thought Floo rejected her parents faith.

  So when it was said that ask your god to be there, which was the case here, you told SoTS they were wrong.

[torridon]

And there's your first problem Stranger...

There are things in this world that cannot be tested in this way, but human beings appear to have no problem in the main dealing with them, e.g. love. I'd like to know how many people who are in a relationship have some sort of 'sliding scale' with which to measure empirically the love of their partner.

If human beings made all decisions based on empirical evidence alone, and the only exception was religious belief, you guys would have a point. However, not only is this not the case in everyday life (e.g. does anyone her ask to see the safety inspection certificate before getting into a lift), it seems not to apply in areas of science. Anyone here got any empirical evidence for Sir David Attenborough's claim that life started in the sea billions of years ago?

That is not a good argument for rejecting empiricism in principle.

That we have to trust, is done out of practical considerations, not because it is a good thing. The residents of Grenfell Tower had no practical alternative other than to trust that fire safety legislation is adequate and building regulations had been adhered to.  Their trust was misplaced.  Trust is not a moral good and it is an enemy of empiricism which can help us discern between rival truth claims.

[torridon]

No, it doesn't: it requires the Mayists to prove that she does exist, otherwise the amayists win by default. However, it is (unfortunately) easy to demonstrate May's existance.
In any case, as I've pointed out before, God's mode of reality is completely different: God is not merely an object in the world, which is what is meant by "existance".

What is God's mode of reality then?

[torridon]

There is nothing stopping you, SusanDoris, bluehillside Retd or anyone else testing for yourself whether what Alan Burns is saying is correct or not. Except that what does appear to be stopping you is the fact that your mind is already made up, hence the need to continually oppose what he is saying. SusanDoris in particular has made it clear on more than one occasion that she doesn't want him having the last word. What is she scared of? That he may be right?

Most of what Alan posts is around the subject of free will so how could I test out whether he is correct or not ?  Should I be trying to make a choice 'freely' and see if it works ? I've made choices before, it's not like it's going to be a novel experience for me.

[floo]

And if your argument is used for e.g. Alan Burns or Vlad, for whom it does work, then the conclusion is that God does exist!

Thank you for illustrating your confirmation bias...

You make it up as go along!

[bluehillside Retd.]

What’s odd about watching the irrationalists circling here is that they seem to be cohering around the same straw man – atheists say “there is no god” – that’s a positive statement – burden of proof – double standards – self-justifying – yada yada yada.

There’s seems to be this desperate need to mischaracterise atheism so as to attack it, presumably because if they were honest about it (ie, that all it entails is finding no good reasons to think there to be a god) the whole tottering tower of piffle would collapse.

Dishonest? I think so given how many times it’s been explained, but it’d be nice if just for once one of them at least would give us a, “ah, now I understand where I’ve gone wrong”.

Perhaps not a good idea to hold my breath though?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What’s odd about watching the irrationalists circling here is that they seem to be cohering around the same straw man – atheists say “there is no god” – that’s a positive statement – burden of proof – double standards – self-justifying – yada yada yada.

There’s seems to be this desperate need to mischaracterise atheism so as to attack it, presumably because if they were honest about it (ie, that all it entails is finding no good reasons to think there to be a god) the whole tottering tower of piffle would collapse.

Dishonest? I think so given how many times it’s been explained, but it’d be nice if just for once one of them at least would give us a, “ah, now I understand where I’ve gone wrong”.

Perhaps not a good idea to hold my breath though?

Or you were sleeping on the job when Be Rational declared that ''God does not exist'' is the default position.

[bluehillside Retd.]

SoTS,

There is nothing stopping you, SusanDoris, bluehillside Retd or anyone else testing for yourself whether what Alan Burns is saying is correct or not. Except that what does appear to be stopping you is the fact that your mind is already made up, hence the need to continually oppose what he is saying. SusanDoris in particular has made it clear on more than one occasion that she doesn't want him having the last word. What is she scared of? That he may be right?

Don’t be silly. What stops people from testing his assertions is the total absence of a method to distinguish his (and your) claims from just guessing.

If you’d like to be the first one here ever to suggest one though, knock yourself out.

[SteveH]

What is God's mode of reality then?

Immanence and transcendence. God is in, under and over everything.

[bluehillside Retd.]

SoTS,

For example

•   Truth is not affected by what one says about it
•   Truth doesn't stop being truth because someone finds it hard to believe
•   Truth doesn't stop being truth because it is hard to prove
•   For a given truth claim X, you can aim to show that X is true or that anything that contradicts X is false.
•   For a given truth claim X, you can aim to show that X is false or show that something that contradicts X is true.
 

What odd notions you hold. Does it really not occur to you that the truth is axiomatically impossible to know? Why? Because absolute certainty would require knowledge of everything there is so as to be sure that the universe does not hold information that could falsify our beliefs.

What that means is that truth is probabilistic – we use the tools and methods available to edge toward working models of it, but we cannot have epistemic certainty.

And what that means is that, when we can apply these tools and methods we can establish functional truths and use them to create solutions – aeroplanes and medicines for example. When we don’t have them though – as with claims of “god” for example – all we have is guessing. And the trouble with guesses is that they are epistemically the same – god, leprechauns, whatever. Accept one and you have no choice but to accept all of them.

And that old son is what all religious faith is “blind”.

You’re welcome.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Steve H,

Immanence and transcendence. God is in, under and over everything.

So you believe. How would you propose that anyone test this remarkable claim?

[torridon]

Immanence and transcendence. God is in, under and over everything.

Nice metaphysical conjecture.

What is the justification for it ?

[Nearly Sane]

Immanence and transcendence. God is in, under and over everything.

I read the above and it honestly seems to mean nothing. When you write that does it feel meaningful to you?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Nice metaphysical conjecture.

What is the justification for it ?

Such conjectures underpin so called scientific searches for theories of everything when in fact science itself cannot suggest there is a theory of everything. Polkinghorne I think would say that in the end the aim of the religious and scientific searches are the same.

If you are a scientist and agree there is no unifying theory of everything, fine. But you cannot knock religion for believing that there is a unified answer to life, the universe etc. if you do.

[ippy]

I have to admire the religionists at least trying to fight back at the non-religious posters on the forum, quite a handicap when there are no facts to be found that would support any of the magical, mystical or superstition based parts of any religious belief/faith; unless, of course?

ippy

[Walt Zingmatilder]

SoTS,

What odd notions you hold. Does it really not occur to you that the truth is axiomatically impossible to know? Why? Because absolute certainty would require knowledge of everything there is so as to be sure that the universe does not hold information that could falsify our beliefs.

But that has no bearing on the truth of God does it?

[savillerow]

When religious believers learn the trick that "faith" answers nothing. Hello. . . . nothing. Then the penny might drop!!!!!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I have to admire the religionists at least trying to fight back at the non-religious posters on the forum, quite a handicap when there are no facts to be found that would support any of the magical, mystical or superstition based parts of any religious belief/faith; unless, of course?

No when one looks at what non religious posters believe over the years I've been here one gets a view of their beliefs.

The atheist of the type they all purport to be would have politely stated why he is atheist, Simple non belief, and retired, Instead they have left a belief footprint which would make any pantomime giant peoud.

[ippy]

Such conjectures underpin so called scientific searches for theories of everything when in fact science itself cannot suggest there is a theory of everything. Polkinghorne I think would say that in the end the aim of the religious and scientific searches are the same.

If you are a scientist and agree there is no unifying theory of everything, fine. But you cannot knock religion for believing that there is a unified answer to life, the universe etc. if you do.

You're not entirely wrong but it's not worth the trouble explaining where you've got it wrong because we will only end up with one of your word jumble nonsense writings of non comprehensionable non answers.

Regards ippy.

[torridon]

Such conjectures underpin so called scientific searches for theories of everything when in fact science itself cannot suggest there is a theory of everything. Polkinghorne I think would say that in the end the aim of the religious and scientific searches are the same.

If you are a scientist and agree there is no unifying theory of everything, fine. But you cannot knock religion for believing that there is a unified answer to life, the universe etc. if you do.

I'd probably agree with Polkinghorne, in so far as our search for answers derives from a human need to make sense of the world.  The difference is that science keeps an open mind and does not make grand claims to have found that unifying theory of everything.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You're not entirely wrong but it's not worth the trouble explaining where you've got it wrong because we will only end up with one of your word jumble nonsense writings of non comprehensionable non answers.

Eh?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'd probably agree with Polkinghorne, in so far as our search for answers derives from a human need to make sense of the world.  The difference is that science keeps an open mind and does make make grand claims to have found that unifying theory of everything.

But what has that got to do with looking for a unifying theory of everything?
You seem to be saying that' science is OK looking for it but will be wrong when it has found it.