Searching for GOD...

[Maeght]

Ah, your doing it again...
You mean evidence and/or proof.

In science there is no proof, only evidence. Colloquially proof is a large amount of supporting evidence such that doubt is minimal. It's not evidence/proof that is the question as far as I can see i.e. if I was replying to me I'd highlight what is accepted as evidence. To me evidence is something which supports a claim, which indicates a particular outcome over others and which could convince others of the truth of a claim.

If you are talking about historical evidence then historians look to decide what was most likely to have happened and will assess the reliability of the sources, how independent of each other they are and how many independent sources there are.

What was your point though?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Gabriella,

It’s very hard to know what Vlad thinks about anything, but I’m not sure he’d agree. He’s arguing (OK, asserting but it’s the same thing in his mind) that “God”, a resurrection etc are objectively real facts about the world.

Yes although scientific observation of the event would be unable to establish a divine or supernatural cause, merely that matter had been transformed"

[torridon]

You can't use the fact that there are many other faiths as an argument against Christian faith - that is an Ap Pop fallacy.
The credible evidence for the Christian faith lies in the Gospels and in the lives of those who accepted Jesus as their Lord and saviour - from the Acts of the apostles, to the conversion and ministry of Paul, to the life stories of the many Christian saints, to the countless miracles performed in Jesus' name, to the simple truth that the son of a carpenter from Nazareth, who never wrote a word of His own, who spent most of His life in obscurity, who suffered and died a criminals death - became the most influential person who ever lived!  Why?  In one word - the Resurrection.

There was no 'Resurrection' in the earliest gospel.  That section was added as the story grew in the telling.  People who really really want to believe tend to overlook such inconvenient details.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

In science there is no proof, only evidence. Colloquially proof is a large amount of supporting evidence such that doubt is minimal. It's not evidence/proof that is the question as far as I can see i.e. if I was replying to me I'd highlight what is accepted as evidence. To me evidence is something which supports a claim, which indicates a particular outcome over others and which could convince others of the truth of a claim.

science has a code which puts limits on it.
Resurrection is something in black swan territory since it can be described as a particular rearrangement of matter. We can not say that the specific arrangement is impossible imv.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

There was no 'Resurrection' in the earliest gospel.  That section was added as the story grew in the telling.  People who really really want to believe tend to overlook such inconvenient details.

The resurrection though I think is mentioned in early epistles.

[Gordon]

Yes although scientific observation of the event would be unable to establish a divine or supernatural cause, merely that matter had been transformed"

Don't be silly - if science as we understand it today were to be applied to the 'event' (assuming there was one) it would be easy peasy to discern life from death, and any reversal of these two states. Since science doesn't deal with supernatural bollocks your point is unsurprisingly, pointless.

That 'matter' was 'transformed' is just you making stuff up again.

[Maeght]

science has a code which puts limits on it.
Resurrection is something in black swan territory since it can be described as a particular rearrangement of matter. We can not say that the specific arrangement is impossible imv.

Science doesn't have certainty because it is open to new evidence coming along that invalidates the theory.

Where have I said resurrection is impossible?

[Gordon]

The resurrection though I think is mentioned in early epistles.

Hansel and Gretel is mentioned in Grimm's book of fairy tales - do you believe that tale too just because it appears in a well know book?

[torridon]

The resurrection though I think is mentioned in early epistles.

Epistles, written by a man that never actually met Jesus, of course.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Don't be silly - if science as we understand it today were to be applied to the 'event' (assuming there was one) it would be easy peasy to discern life from death, and any reversal of these two states. Since science doesn't deal with supernatural bollocks your point is unsurprisingly, pointless.

That 'matter' was 'transformed' is just you making stuff up again.

Gordon you need to reflect on the following suggestions.
You believe the following
a) life is merely dependent on the arrangement of matter
B) It is not impossible to rearrange matter

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Hansel and Gretel is mentioned in Grimm's book of fairy tales - do you believe that tale too just because it appears in a well know book?

Not if it has Grimms fairy tales on the cover.

[Gordon]

Gordon you need to reflect on the following suggestions.
You believe the following
a) life is merely dependent on the arrangement of matter
B) It is not impossible to rearrange matter

I'm not the one asserting that dead people don't stay dead - if you believe that then the burden of proof is yours: but you know this already.

[Gordon]

Hansel and Gretel is mentioned in Grimm's book of fairy tales - do you believe that tale too just because it appears in a well know book?

Not if it has Grimms fairy tales on the cover.

I do hope you're not drifting into special pleading: 'New Testament Fairy Tales' (where dead people don't stay dead) seems comparable in terms of unbelievable content - yet you take the NT seriously!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Not if it has Grimms fairy tales on the cover.


I do hope you're not drifting into special pleading: 'New Testament Fairy Tales' (where dead people don't stay dead) seems comparable in terms of unbelievable content - yet you take the NT seriously!

So it's argument from incredulity then Gordon.
And since you seem to be positively asserting the NT is a fairy tale you know what you have to do.
I look forward to you presenting your report in full.

[Gordon]

So it's argument from incredulity then Gordon.
And since you seem to be positively asserting the NT is a fairy tale you know what you have to do.
I look forward to you presenting your report in full.

Don't be silly - I said it was comparable with Grimm's because they both contain fantastical stories: if you contend that one isn't fantastical then it is your challenge to show that your preferred set of fairy stories are true.

[Dicky Underpants]

The resurrection though I think is mentioned in early epistles.

Not as a 'rearrangement  of matter', though. Paul claims he experienced a being of light, and further said "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven".

[Alan Burns]

Don't be silly - if science as we understand it today were to be applied to the 'event' (assuming there was one) it would be easy peasy to discern life from death, and any reversal of these two states. Since science doesn't deal with supernatural bollocks your point is unsurprisingly, pointless.

That 'matter' was 'transformed' is just you making stuff up again.

The point is that from a materialist point of view, the resurrection would involve merely a re arrangement of the atoms to replicate what there was before death occurred.  But there is more to human life than a specific arrangement of atoms.

The truth is that death of a human being is not merely a re arrangement of the atoms in the biological machine of the body - it is the departure of the human soul from the material body.

[Sebastian Toe]

The truth is that death of a human being is not merely a re arrangement of the atoms in the biological machine of the body - it is the departure of the human soul from the material body.

Wait a minute there.
Doesn't the soul depart from the material body everytime you are not concious? It scuttles back to the soul-verse awaiting the signal to reconnect once you are awake?
At least according to  the soul-laws of Alan Burns.
Have I missed some detail?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Gabriella,

It’s very hard to know what Vlad thinks about anything, but I’m not sure he’d agree. He’s arguing (OK, asserting but it’s the same thing in his mind) that “God”, a resurrection etc are objectively real facts about the world. You on the other hand seem to lean more toward the allegorical, though presumably you think Allah and his messenger Angel was/is real too?     

That’s well and good but it misses the point. We can all discuss what effect allegorical tales and their interpretations have on our lives, but some of us seek to impose a faux authority on them too by insisting that their deistic authors or their supernatural casts of characters were real too, and so the stories should be taken as authoritative, inerrant, binding etc.

I didn’t suggest that it did. I just find the leap from “I find these stories to be helpful/educative/whatever” straight to “therefore their author was divine” with no connecting reasoning or evidence to get you there to be odd. I also find it to be depressing given what so many (not you) then do with the unqualified authority they think this gives them in terms of how they treat other people. 

This is the same trap in which AB is ensnared. You take your subjective experiences as being indicative of objective truths, notwithstanding the Grand Canyon-sized gap you'd need to bridge to get you from the former to the latter. To be fair to you, you (unlike AB) don’t presume to evangelise for the “if it’s true for me it’s true for you too” drivel he attempts, but I’m at a loss to know how you reconcile the problem even as a “true for me only” truth.       

I am not sure where I have indicated an objective truth from my experiences as opposed to a belief. Which bit of what I wrote are you referring to? An objective truth is one I can demonstrate. I haven't claimed I can demonstrate the existence of God but I believe in the existence of God because of how my brain has interpreted subjective experiences.

[Sriram]

Good point about Sufi Islam. I have encountered a lot of Sufis who follow the Naqshbandi path.

I understand the Sufi point/ method of remembrance of Allah through prolonged dhikr and meditation. Then it all becomes very mystical. Not sure what some Sufis mean if some of them think that meditation and dhikr leads them to think they have encountered Allah. Remembrance and focus on breathing and thinking about Allah's attributes and being aware of Allah and meditation and having what they feel is a transcendental experience seems to be a different concept to encountering Allah - so not really sure what is meant by that.

Again though, these are all subjective experiences - and would not constitute evidence that could prove for others the existence of Allah or if any encounter took place.

Religion and faith like other abstract concepts and experiences are internal experiences for the individual, which are interpreted by the individual. Language has been developed by the human brain to try to communicate and describe internal experiences to others but there is no way of verifying if any of these abstract concepts are experienced the same way by individuals as the interpretations of the experience by each person's brain/ mind are unique to the individual.

An experience is an experience.... and if there are objective methods by which the experience can be had by others also, it is evidence of an objective reality.

People do experience (I personally have) something beyond the material and something which provides solace and peace and also provides real solutions to problems almost magically. This is real and people across the world in all generations have experienced it.  Most people have also experienced the presence of some sort of an entity (not necessarily visually).

Now...whether this entity or presence is actually Allah or Brahman or the supreme almighty itself or some other form of higher level consciousness can be argued. That is however irrelevant to the experience and is of only philosophical importance. 

[Gordon]

The point is that from a materialist point of view, the resurrection would involve merely a re arrangement of the atoms to replicate what there was before death occurred.  But there is more to human life than a specific arrangement of atoms.

The truth is that death of a human being is not merely a re arrangement of the atoms in the biological machine of the body - it is the departure of the human soul from the material body.

The 'departure of the human soul' bit is an example of said supernatural bollocks.

P.S. At base all life is just various arrangements of atoms, Alan: you're just as much a biological machine as is the bird I've just seen in the tree outside our front window.

[torridon]

The point is that from a materialist point of view, the resurrection would involve merely a re arrangement of the atoms to replicate what there was before death occurred.  But there is more to human life than a specific arrangement of atoms.

The truth is that death of a human being is not merely a re arrangement of the atoms in the biological machine of the body - it is the departure of the human soul from the material body.

which is not the truth at all, it is merely your assertion; an assertion without any evidence to justify it.  If you want to convince people who care about truth then you are going to have to up your game

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Not as a 'rearrangement  of matter', though. Paul claims he experienced a being of light, and further said "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven".

This is how he appeared to Paul. I don’t think Paul prescribes this mode or experience for other witnesses mentioned in the epistles. The accounts of the nature of Jesus resurrected body in the gospels and acts differ but the account of Thomas suggests the witnessed attributes directed the particular witness to greater faith.

Eventually though as Paul reminds us the flesh passes away and the link with this world is severed.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The 'departure of the human soul' bit is an example of said supernatural bollocks.

Blam. Bet the house, everything on the red, straight to it.

[Gordon]

Blam. Bet the house, everything on the red, straight to it.

Yep - Alan's attempts to explain this 'soul' and how it functions and integrates with our biology is plainly nonsense.

Unless he can make some sense of his 'soul' notion, and he hasn't, then I'd say that supernatural bollocks is an apt description.