Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

So why is it that, in all the years and years you've been posting, you have never once offered a single hint of the merest suggestion of the tiniest morsel of actual evidence?

I have offered abundant evidence for the reality of God, our own spiritual nature and the historical evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
It is your choice to find reasons to dismiss it or try to ridicule it or ignore it.

[Stranger]

You seem oblivious to the concept of our conscious self being able to invoke an act of will within our material brain.

Because you haven't been able to make it make the slightest bit of logical sense. It's nothing but desperate, mindless gibbering. ETA: And, of course "invoking an act of will" is itself an action, and so requires time. You simply can't escape the logic of time if you want anything to do anything like make a choice.

For your logic to be valid, you would need to show how the working of the human mind is entirely dependent on the time line in our material universe.

No, just that must be dependant on some sort of timeline. That is what I just did. You cannot make a choice, and hence have any possibility of wilful action without time.

[Nearly Sane]

I have offered abundant evidence for the reality of God, our own spiritual nature and the historical evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
It is your choice to find reasons to dismiss it or try to ridicule it or ignore it.

Can you outline your methodology for evaluating evidence for supernatural claims?

[Stranger]

I have offered abundant evidence for the reality of God, our own spiritual nature and the historical evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Where? There is no evidence at all for any of these claims. There is some evidence that the stories in the NT may have been based on some real person but there is zero evidence for all the miraculous and fantastical claims about him.

You have offered no evidence for any god, and nothing at all to support our "spiritual nature". Nothing. You've made endless baseless and unargued assertions that something or other is evidence, but that's not the same thing at all.

You don't seem to understand what the word 'evidence' even means.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I have offered abundant evidence for the reality of God, our own spiritual nature and the historical evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

No you haven’t. All you’ve actually offered is abundant examples fallacious reasoning, unqualified assertions and incoherent white noise. 

It is your choice to find reasons to dismiss it or try to ridicule it or ignore it.

Or to falsify it – which is what several people have done over and over again, only for you to ignore the falsifications you’ve been given.

To take just three examples, you cannot claim:

– “the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true” to be evidence for the Bible being true;

– an interventionist god speculation to deliver the plan of a designer god premise to be evidence for god;

– supposed miracles to be evidence for god when you have no method to establish they were actually miracles at all. 

In short, I don’t know whether the objects of your blind faith beliefs (“god” etc) are real, but I do know both that your justifications for believing them to be real are entirely shit, and that your consistent avoidance of the explanations you’re given for why they’re entirely shit is deeply dishonest.

[Alan Burns]

Because you haven't been able to make it make the slightest bit of logical sense. It's nothing but desperate, mindless gibbering. ETA: And, of course "invoking an act of will" is itself an action, and so requires time. You simply can't escape the logic of time if you want anything to do anything like make a choice.

No, just that must be dependant on some sort of timeline. That is what I just did. You cannot make a choice, and hence have any possibility of wilful action without time.

Invoking an act of will from the ever present state of your conscious awareness certainly interacts with the time line of our material universe, but it is not determined by it.

[Sebastian Toe]

You cannot extrapolate the time dependent cause and effect scenarios observed in material behaviour to apply to anything outside the realms of our material universe.

Is your soul outside the realms of our material universe?

[Alan Burns]

Where? There is no evidence at all for any of these claims. There is some evidence that the stories in the NT may have been based on some real person but there is zero evidence for all the miraculous and fantastical claims about him.

For most of our history, scientific evidence was not available
The historical evidence supporting the life, death, miracles and resurrection of Jesus is based on separate eye witness accounts.
As is the evidence supporting the vast majority of mankind's history.

[Stranger]

Invoking an act of will from the ever present state of your conscious awareness certainly interacts with the time line of our material universe, but it is not determined by it.

Oh, do stop being so silly. You cannot do any invoking without time. Invoking is an action. And that's before we get to the process that decides what it wants to invoke, which also requires time.

Nothing that minds do can happen without time. "Ever present state" literally doesn't mean anything. It's just words strung together that don't correspond to any coherent concept.

[Nearly Sane]

For most of our history, scientific evidence was not available
The historical evidence supporting the life, death, miracles and resurrection of Jesus is based on separate eye witness accounts.
As is the evidence supporting the vast majority of mankind's history.

Historical evidence is methodologically naturalistic. Again can you provide your methodology for evaluating supernatural claims?

[Stranger]

The historical evidence supporting the life, death, miracles and resurrection of Jesus is based on separate eye witness accounts.

Not only are eyewitness accounts notoriously unreliable, it's not even true that we have these. All we have is written stories that claim that there were eyewitnesses and those stories were written and then selected for inclusion in your book of myths by believers. It's hardly objective, even by the standards of unreliable eyewitness accounts.

Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence (that's not just a nice phrase, it's based on the mathematics of Bayesian probability) and all you have is supposed eyewitness accounts that have been carefully selected by people with an obvious vested interest.

It's pathetic.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB.

For most of our history, scientific evidence was not available

You weren’t asked for scientific evidence – just for evidence in general. Coherent and non-fallacious arguments might for example be a good place for you to start.

The historical evidence supporting the life, death, miracles and resurrection of Jesus is based on separate eye witness accounts.

First, there are no eye witness accounts.

Second, even if there were eye witness accounts they’re one of the most unreliable forms of evidence we have.

Third, even if there were eye witness accounts and even if you could find some way to eliminate their inherent unreliability, still you’d have the problem of how you’d apply the naturalistic character of evidence to clams of the supernatural.

In other words, your claim to have “historical evidence” is shit.   

As is the evidence supporting the vast majority of mankind's history.

Gibberish. What are you even trying to say here?

[jeremyp]

And we all (most of us anyway) have regrets over bad choices we know we could have made differently under the same circumstances.

Yes but, given exactly the same information and having to make the same choice over again, how could we make a different choice? Surely, if the information is the same and the thought processes are the same, how could the choice be any different?

[Outrider]

For most of our history, scientific evidence was not available.

Well, technically it was always available, we just hadn't established a methodology for making good use of it. Thankfully for us, though, we are not living in that 'most of our history', we're living now when we do have those scientific methods available.

The historical evidence supporting the life, death, miracles and resurrection of Jesus is based on separate eye witness accounts.

No, it's based on subsequent retellings of alleged eye-witness accounts, with a high degree of cross-pollenation and a well documented selective editing process by early vested interests.

As is the evidence supporting the vast majority of mankind's history.

Much of human history is based upon eyewitness accounts, or subsequent documentation of reports of events. When investigating those, historians are obliged to give weight to the likely biases and cultural background of the authors of pieces, which we're equally obliged to do here. However, for the overwhelming majority of human history the events we're investigating are not reports of magic; even if the evidentiary basis were equal to better established events, in order to justify those claims the burden of proof would be significantly higher.

The existence of an historical Jesus is, by and large, accepted by modern historians as at least plausible, if not actively likely. The existence of the mythical Jesus the Wizard is not in the same category.

O.

[Alan Burns]

Yes but, given exactly the same information and having to make the same choice over again, how could we make a different choice? Surely, if the information is the same and the thought processes are the same, how could the choice be any different?

That would be the case if we were a biological machine with no will of its own.

[torridon]

That would be the case if we were a biological machine with no will of its own.

Already covered this in reply 48408, you aren't paying attention, it seems.  Everyone has a will that is unique to them.  This is why there is diversity of thought and action in human affairs, no two people think or do exactly alike.  But that will has origins, it is not something existing ex-nihilo, but rather it derives from its formative influences. Evidence that this is true is ubiquitous.

[Stranger]

That would be the case if we were a biological machine with no will of its own.

Firstly this isn't even true. We do have a will of our own, it's just that the nature of what we will is there for reasons (nature, nurture, and experience), and doesn't just pop out of some magic, impossible fantasy as you would have us believe.

Secondly, even if it was true, this would be an argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy. Reality is under no obligation to be as you would like it to be.

I'll ask again because you never answer: what is it with you and fallacies? Fallacies are basically dimwitted and obviously flawed thinking. Yet you don't seem to care when people point out that you're using them. How can you claim to have thought deeply about something, and have an enquiring mind, when so much of what you say is obviously wrong and you don't seem to even care that it's obviously wrong?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

You seem to be stuck in the time related cause and effect scenario observed in our material world. You seem oblivious to the concept of our conscious self being able to invoke an act of will within our material brain.
For your logic to be valid, you would need to show how the working of the human mind is entirely dependent on the time line in our material universe.

What determines your conscious self’s will (that is invoked in its act of will)? In other words, how does your conscious self decide what to will in any given situation? For example is your will based on emotions and feelings generated by events you experience?

[Stranger]

What determines your conscious self’s will (that is invoked in its act of will)? In other words, how does your conscious self decide what to will in any given situation?

Best of luck getting an answer to that that isn't the logical equivalent of "it's magic, innit?" or some inane, evasive drivel about it being 'you'. Some of us have been asking him this question for years.

[jeremyp]

That would be the case if we were a biological machine with no will of its own.

The point is relevant regardless of if we are a biological machine or if we have this soul that you claim exists. The argument doesn't mention the nature of the entity making the decision.

With exactly the same information and in exactly the same context, do you think your immortal soul would make a different decision second time around? If so, how?

[Alan Burns]

The point is relevant regardless of if we are a biological machine or if we have this soul that you claim exists. The argument doesn't mention the nature of the entity making the decision.

With exactly the same information and in exactly the same context, do you think your immortal soul would make a different decision second time around? If so, how?

We would certainly be free to make a different choice if we so wished.
Only God knows how this is done.

If we did not have the God given power of free will, our lives would be ultimately pointless.

[torridon]

We would certainly be free to make a different choice if we so wished.

If we wished differently then of course we would choose differently; that kind of misses the point.  This thought experiment concerns - could you choose differently in an identical situation. If your desire is different second time around, then the situation clearly is not identical.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

We would certainly be free to make a different choice if we so wished.

How?

Only God knows how this is done.

“It’s magic innit?” is not an argument.

If we did not have the God given power of free will, our lives would be ultimately pointless.

No they wouldn’t (and no they aren’t) but, even if that was true, it would still be a basic error in reasoning called the argumentum ad populum.

Why do you claim to have thought deeply about things when at the same time you’re utterly indifferent to repeating the same shit arguments over and over again?

[Stranger]

We would certainly be free to make a different choice if we so wished.

And if everything was exactly the same, there is no possible reason for you to wish differently, so any such differences would be for no reason, and things that happen for no reason are random.

Your version of 'freedom' is hence nothing more than random variation.

If we did not have the God given power of free will, our lives would be ultimately pointless.

Wow. Totally subjective value judgement fed into another argumentum ad consequentiam fallacy (dimwitted mistake in reasoning). Again, reality is under no obligation to conform to what you think of as desirable. Specifically, it isn't under any obligation to give your life what you regard as a point. Trying to say that something cannot be true because it would otherwise make your life pointless (in your own opinion) is hence, obviously flawed reasoning.

[ekim]

We would certainly be free to make a different choice if we so wished.

... then your choice is not free, it is determined by your wish or desire for a particular outcome.  If that wish is based upon religious doctrine it is even less free, isn't it?