How Can Anyone Believe in God?

[Dexter Morgan]

Just once wouldn't you love for someone to simply show you the evidence for God's existence? No arm-twisting. No statements of, "You just have to believe." If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away. It is like if someone refuses to believe that people have walked on the moon, then no amount of information is going to change their thinking. Photographs of astronauts walking on the moon, interviews with the astronauts, moon rocks...all the evidence would be worthless, because the person has already concluded that people cannot go to the moon.

When it comes to the possibility of God's existence, the Bible says that there are people who have seen sufficient evidence, but they have suppressed the truth about God. On the other hand, for those who want to know God if he is there, he says, "You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you." Before you look at the facts surrounding God's existence, ask yourself, If God does exist, would I want to know him?

 

[RDK]

The analogy between the moon landing and there being a God is completely ridiculous. The moon landing happened within 50 years ago, was witnessed by millions of people, and anyone who doesn't believe it's possible to go to the moon is a ****ing ****** (I'm looking at you, Joe Rogan).

And what do you mean by "do I want to know God"? You mean do I want to have a personal relationship with him? Not any more than I want to have a personal relationship with the man who invented the telephone I use, or the company thatv supplies my dorm with electricity.

Even if there is a Creator or "higher power" of some sort, which is possible, there's no reason to believe he / they want to cuddle up with us and share wartime stories. That's why the concept of the Christian God is asinine--a so-called omnipotent God doesn't need to have a personal reletionship with fallen humans.

 

[Dexter Morgan]

This is your decision, no coercion here. But if you want to be forgiven by God and come into a relationship with him, you can do so right now by asking him to forgive you and come into your life. Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door [of your heart] and knock. He who hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him [or her]." If you want to do this, but aren't sure how to put it into words, this may help: "Jesus, thank you for dying for my sins. You know my life and that I need to be forgiven. I ask you to forgive me right now and come into my life. I want to know you in a real way. Come into my life now. Thank you that you wanted a relationship with me. Amen."

God views your relationship with him as permanent. Referring to all those who believe in him, Jesus Christ said of us, "I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand."

So, does God exist? Looking at all these facts, one can conclude that a loving God does exist and can be known in an intimate, personal way

 

[RDK]

What "facts"? All you did was quote a few Bible verses.

And even if I recited that stock invite-Jesus-into-your-heart crap that I've heard OVER 9000 times, nothing spectacular would happen. In fact, nothing would happen at all. The so-called "feelings" you get from being religious are caused by chemical reactions in your body, like everything else. It's basically one big placebo effect.

 

[AlcyoNite]

It is very hard not to start being irraitonal in these topics. To say that Christians have no footing is completely wrong. Why should everything that you believe in be so scientifically proven and apparently correct? According to the principals of science, nothing can be completely proven correct or incorrect.

My church may have the same Christian label as another, but we act in different ways. While I believe in God, I do not believe in magic; just because people call themselves Christian does not mean that they necessarily agree with the methods of other Christians. I am against discrimination against gay people. I believe that they have the right to do what they want as long as they are not hurting anyone else. I may not agree with their actions, but it is certainly not my right to fight for the removal of their rights.

Yes, I will stick to my guns in saying that evidence of Jesus is a feeling only achieved through faith. There is other evidence, mind you. But it is only there for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. If you don't know the love of God, how could you evaluate by beliefs by simply standing on the outside and in some way invalidating what evidence I recognize everyday of the presence of Jesus at work.

Additionally, you act like everything I believe has to be proven first by some scientific study. Not everything can be found in a textbook. Feelings are induced by chemical reactions just like other feelings; why invalidate these feelings alone with that argument? Your resistance to recognize Jesus is no doubt induced by chemical reactions.

If you are not willing to seek Jesus, that is your decision. I will not stuff him down your throat. That's not my job nor the job of any other Christian. If you want a reason to believe, then speak to your Christian friends. I'm sure that some aspect of their character will seem unique and questionable (in a good way).

I going to try to stop arguing this. Just as I keep justifying my beliefs with "the Bible says so," you all keep formulating some flaw in my argument with a scientific theory or other more wordly more plausible "fact." These points that I argue can be well supports, I'm just not very good at it. I actually greatly appreciate the minister at my church; he's probably one of the most educated and moving orator I've ever met. What he says makes sense and he always seems to address these issues in his sermons. And for the record, I am a part of an interdenominational church that is constantly spreading.

No one is perfect. There is no perfect Christian. There is no perfect Atheist. We are all living. We are all sinning. Yet only some of us are forgiving.

 

[Kur]

This is your decision, no coercion here. But if you want to be forgiven by God and come into a relationship with him, you can do so right now by asking him to forgive you and come into your life. Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door [of your heart] and knock. He who hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him [or her]." If you want to do this, but aren't sure how to put it into words, this may help: "Jesus, thank you for dying for my sins. You know my life and that I need to be forgiven. I ask you to forgive me right now and come into my life. I want to know you in a real way. Come into my life now. Thank you that you wanted a relationship with me. Amen."

God views your relationship with him as permanent. Referring to all those who believe in him, Jesus Christ said of us, "I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand."

So, does God exist? Looking at all these facts, one can conclude that a loving God does exist and can be known in an intimate, personal way

Ok, I am going to edit that statement a little bit and I would like you to read the results.

"This is your decision, no coercion here. But if you want to be forgiven by Ganondorf and come into a relationship with him, you can do so right now by asking him to forgive you and come into your life. Jigglypuff said, "Behold, I stand at the door [of your heart] and knock. He who hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him [or her]." If you want to do this, but aren't sure how to put it into words, this may help: "Jigglypuff, thank you for dying for my sins. You know my life and that I need to be forgiven. I ask you to forgive me right now and come into my life. I want to know you in a real way. Come into my life now. Thank you that you wanted a relationship with me. Amen."

Ganondorf views your relationship with him as permanent. Referring to all those who believe in him, Jigglypuff said of us, "I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand."

So, does Ganondorf exist? Looking at all these facts, one can conclude that a loving Ganondorf does exist and can be known in an intimate, personal way"


To those of us who aren't indoctrinated into some religion, or have broken free of that indoctrination, your statements sounds as silly with the words god and jesus as I have made it sound with the words ganondorf and jigglypuff.

That last sentence really made me laugh. Looking as all these facts? What facts? You didn't list any facts at all. You basically just said god would accept you. How is that proof of god?

It is very hard not to start being irraitonal in these topics. To say that Christians have no footing is completely wrong. Why should everything that you believe in be so scientifically proven and apparently correct? According to the principals of science, nothing can be completely proven correct or incorrect.

My church may have the same Christian label as another, but we act in different ways. While I believe in God, I do not believe in magic; just because people call themselves Christian does not mean that they necessarily agree with the methods of other Christians. I am against discrimination against gay people. I believe that they have the right to do what they want as long as they are not hurting anyone else. I may not agree with their actions, but it is certainly not my right to fight for the removal of their rights.

Yes, I will stick to my guns in saying that evidence of Jesus is a feeling only achieved through faith. There is other evidence, mind you. But it is only there for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. If you don't know the love of God, how could you evaluate by beliefs by simply standing on the outside and in some way invalidating what evidence I recognize everyday of the presence of Jesus at work.

Additionally, you act like everything I believe has to be proven first by some scientific study. Not everything can be found in a textbook. Feelings are induced by chemical reactions just like other feelings; why invalidate these feelings alone with that argument? Your resistance to recognize Jesus is no doubt induced by chemical reactions.

If you are not willing to seek Jesus, that is your decision. I will not stuff him down your throat. That's not my job nor the job of any other Christian. If you want a reason to believe, then speak to your Christian friends. I'm sure that some aspect of their character will seem unique and questionable (in a good way).

I going to try to stop arguing this. Just as I keep justifying my beliefs with "the Bible says so," you all keep formulating some flaw in my argument with a scientific theory or other more wordly more plausible "fact." These points that I argue can be well supports, I'm just not very good at it. I actually greatly appreciate the minister at my church; he's probably one of the most educated and moving orator I've ever met. What he says makes sense and he always seems to address these issues in his sermons. And for the record, I am a part of an interdenominational church that is constantly spreading.

No one is perfect. There is no perfect Christian. There is no perfect Atheist. We are all living. We are all sinning. Yet only some of us are forgiving.

Simply declaring that christians have some footing in their claims does not make it true. I don't simply state something is fact, I back it up with evidence and explanation.

You ask why everything I believe in should be scientifically proven? Easy answer, because why bother believing in something that isn't real? Why bother believing that something exists when it simply can not be proven? It serves no purpose at all.

And yes I know. I have said myself that nothing can be proven 100%, but being proved beyond reasonable doubt is good enough.

And yes, I know, not every christian is the same. BUT the christian church has a centralized leadership that tells the rest of you what the church does and does not believe.

And how is faith evidence for anything? Faith is defined as a belief in something in spite of contradictory or lack of evidence. I think it is something you should be ashamed of having, much less proud of it.

My 'resistance' to accept jesus is not a feeling, or a chemical reaction. It is the product of logic and reason. Asking me to accept jesus as real is no different than me asking you to accept The Incredible Hulk as real. You know the hulk isn't real. You know there is no way I can prove he is real. And yet here I am getting all offended that you don't believe in him. Do you see how silly it is?

I am sure your minister is a smart guy, but I have yet to see a minister, priest, reverend, or whatever, who actually took the time to seriously study science and understand (among others) the theory of evolution. Much more often than not, the only thing they know about evolution is what is told to them by press releases from the heads of the church. Which is why they say completely ridiculous things like "How can something come from nothing?" or "If we evolved from monkeys, how come we still got monkeys?" or "Evolution says the universe ..."

 

[adumbrodeus]

Except that it does just that.

My account on the origins of religion is in direct conflict with what the religions themselves say are their origins. If the religion is right as it exists today, then its own origin tale must also be correct, which it is not. The whole idea behind a burning bush, parting seas, noahs ark, 72 virgins, virgin births, all that nonsense never happened because the religion was the product of mans imagination and want to explain the unexplainable.

Of course the only real way out of this is to claim the origin tale I have given is incorrect, and it may well be. I was reciting it from memory only and left out a great deal though the general idea is there. BUT there is a lot of evidence to support the general idea of the story and show the gradual evolution of todays organized religions from simple sun and ancestor worship.

Not really...

Why did the Hebrews switch to monotheism? Why did the Christians come up with the son and the holy spirit?

The fact that they were anthropologically "ready" for the switch to a different religion form doesn't nessisate that the direct influence is untrue. In fact, quite the opposite in fact, it suggests that there was "something" that created the unique character of the specific religion.

Thus the details of the origin stories are simply the direct events in this evolution, tipping points if you will, that continued this process to it's ultimate conclusion.

Nothing that you said disputes that any fact of the religion's origin did not actually occur. If they occured, your theory contextualizes them in the context of broader anthropoligical understanding. If they did not, then figuring out what the actual event that was distorted to become the events described is still the issue. Either way, there was still something. Great cultural shifts don't just happen out of thin air (however the causes may be much more mundane).

The point is, accepting your theory neither confirms nor denies the varacity of religion.

The one critical flaw in this argument is this:

Science works.

If the scientific method was unreliable as you claim, then all of the calculations, all of the results of experiments, all of the technology derived from those unreliable measurements simply wouldn't work.

If you add up all of the (supposedly) flawed measurements, observations, calculations, theories, procedures, data, analysis, production, prediction, experimentation, and application needed to launch a probe to mars, then the resulting compounded error would make it impossible to even put the rocket together, much less launch it successfully and land the probe safely on the surface of another planet. To even calculate the speed, distance, and position of the planet mars relative to earth, then from that calculate the exact moments and durations needed for firing rockets and directional boosters, would be impossible.

Yet, they pulled it off without a hitch.

Amazing what precision science can achieve with (supposedly) unreliable methods.

Induction is not rigorious therefore is not valid (at least not in finite tests).

Ironcially enough, that claim violates all provisions of the scientific method.


Check a little bit back, we were discussing the philosophy of science and it's implications.

And remember this all has the assumption that the universe exists, something completely unprovable.

I just did. Logically, if our ability to measure and observe is unreliable, then anything we create would be flawed. If we create a flawed rocket designed to carry a probe to mars, then it would either explode on ignition, or just not fit together during assembly.

And science NEVER EVER says anything is proven 100%. That would be completely unscientific. What science does do however is say that a thing is proven beyond reasonable doubt.

And seriously, our susceptibility to optical illusions is an extremely poor argument in trying to deny our ability to observe evidence. It is akin to 'grabbing at straws'.

Besides, double blind testing, mechanical data gathering, and experimentation rule out any 'illusion of the senses' a researcher might experience.

*bolding added.

No, science says something is NOT DISPROVEN, massive difference.

With the scientific method, you never accept the null. Your only job as a scientist is to disprove it and replace it with a better null. This process is continued infinitely.

Nothing is proven, or even accepted to any point beyond being the current null hypothesis.

There is almost no evidence outside of the bible to support the idea that Jesus ever existed. As a matter of fact, there is more evidence for the existence of Dionysus than Jesus. Dionysus was a character from nearly the same time period who shares nearly all of the same stories as Jesus. Miracles, healing the sick, virgin birth, executed, raised from the dead, son of god, etc. etc. And there are many many others with nearly identical stories.

And even if Jesus did exist (I have no reason to doubt he did, but no proof that he did either) then he certainly was not the son of god or capable of performing anything more than parlor tricks.

There's more then enough historical evidence to establish his existance. Really the existance of the bible itself is more evidence then we have to establish the existance of most of the roman emperors. There are other pieces of historical evidence that back that conclusion up as well.

Of course, this doesn't establish that he actually performed miracles, but that's a different story.

 

[RDK]

And remember this all has the assumption that the universe exists, something completely unprovable.

This is a stupid statement and has nothing to do with anything. When accepting casuality, of course the universe exists. Now you're just getting into symantics, which will again no doubt throw us into another argument that will never end.[/COLOR]

 

[Kur]

Not really...

Why did the Hebrews switch to monotheism? Why did the Christians come up with the son and the holy spirit?

The fact that they were anthropologically "ready" for the switch to a different religion form doesn't nessisate that the direct influence is untrue. In fact, quite the opposite in fact, it suggests that there was "something" that created the unique character of the specific religion.

Thus the details of the origin stories are simply the direct events in this evolution, tipping points if you will, that continued this process to it's ultimate conclusion.

Nothing that you said disputes that any fact of the religion's origin did not actually occur. If they occured, your theory contextualizes them in the context of broader anthropoligical understanding. If they did not, then figuring out what the actual event that was distorted to become the events described is still the issue. Either way, there was still something. Great cultural shifts don't just happen out of thin air (however the causes may be much more mundane).

The point is, accepting your theory neither confirms nor denies the varacity of religion.




Induction is not rigorious therefore is not valid (at least not in finite tests).

Ironcially enough, that claim violates all provisions of the scientific method.


Check a little bit back, we were discussing the philosophy of science and it's implications.

And remember this all has the assumption that the universe exists, something completely unprovable.




*bolding added.

No, science says something is NOT DISPROVEN, massive difference.

With the scientific method, you never accept the null. Your only job as a scientist is to disprove it and replace it with a better null. This process is continued infinitely.

Nothing is proven, or even accepted to any point beyond being the current null hypothesis.



There's more then enough historical evidence to establish his existance. Really the existance of the bible itself is more evidence then we have to establish the existance of most of the roman emperors. There are other pieces of historical evidence that back that conclusion up as well.

Of course, this doesn't establish that he actually performed miracles, but that's a different story.

You make far too many assumptions.

I never said the switch to monotheism was an overnight thing. It was a slow gradual change as the result of the early hebrews favoring one god in particular. Just as in ancient Egyptian religions where the two gods Amon and Ra were combined into one AmonRa and others were lost over time. The addition of jesus was no quick thing either. There were literally dozens of sons of god running around at the time. Dionysus is one I can think of off the top of my head. All of these other "jesus's" had very similar stories behind them. It took 50 to 100 years after the supposed death of jesus before the gospels are ever written. These are not tipping points, they are slow gradual changes.

And this origin story completely undermines the validity of the christian religion. The very existance of other religions undermines the validity of the christian religion. Arguing that the biblical origins of the religion are some distorted account of the real origin, or that the origins being false don't mean the religion is false, is just pure conjecture based on nothing. You are simply declaring something as truth.


I really don't know what you were hoping to accomplish by bringing up induction.


And I was not discussing the philosophy of science. I was responding to the original question posed in this post. "How can anyone believe in god?"

I can tell you are a big fan of philosophy but I find it rather useless. If a student of philosophy can say something like "And remember this all has the assumption that the universe exists, something completely unprovable. " then I have no use for philosophy at all. It is a waste of time and leads to completely ******** notions.

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions." - Thomas Jefferson

Of course the universe exists and there is plenty of evidence to support that.

And no science does say that something is proven beyond reasonable doubt. Simply saying something is not disproven leads to no understanding at all. If that is all science could do then scientifically speaking, unicorns and pixies exist because they are not disproven. Really now, I can tell by your use of the word theory that you do not know as much about science as you think you do.

And please, rather than just saying there is evidence outside the bible to show jesus existed, why don't you show it to me? I can't find it and I have been looking for the past 15 years. Show me something.

And the existence of the bible is evidence for little more than the imagination of man.

 

[SkylerOcon]

Gods can't be proven nor disproven. There is no way to prove any God in any way shape or form. However, there is no way to disprove them.

Using the bible as a way to say that God exists is like using Super Smash Brothers to say Mario exists. The bible was written by man, translated from the original Hebrew manuscripts by man, and thus changed and dirtied by many men. The bible we have today is probably completely different from the original.

Not only that, but it's common for people to use the bible to justify there own petty phobias. Hitler? He used the bible to justify the holocaust. Slave traders? They used the bible to justify slaves. Homophobes? They use the bible to justify that. The bible has become less a symbol of Christianity, and more a way to avoid getting in trouble because if you do get in trouble they would be 'insulting your religion'.

 

[adumbrodeus]

You make far too many assumptions.

No really, understand that I am merely pointing out not nessisarily that anything is true.

Instead the possibility exists for your premises to be held and for religion to be true. This invalidates your argument.

I never said the switch to monotheism was an overnight thing. It was a slow gradual change as the result of the early hebrews favoring one god in particular. Just as in ancient Egyptian religions where the two gods Amon and Ra were combined into one AmonRa and others were lost over time. The addition of jesus was no quick thing either. There were literally dozens of sons of god running around at the time. Dionysus is one I can think of off the top of my head. All of these other "jesus's" had very similar stories behind them. It took 50 to 100 years after the supposed death of jesus before the gospels are ever written. These are not tipping points, they are slow gradual changes.

And I never suggested that it HAD to be a quick switch. Tipping points are just single events that ultimately result in large-scale shifts. A gradual shift in the Hebrew's understanding of the same deity does not invalidate their belief system. The individual events would gradually shape their understanding of exactly who God was.

There always are lots of people who claim to be some sort of messiah. However, for whatever reason, Jesus was different. For whatever reason, Christianity

And this origin story completely undermines the validity of the christian religion. The very existance of other religions undermines the validity of the christian religion. Arguing that the biblical origins of the religion are some distorted account of the real origin, or that the origins being false don't mean the religion is false, is just pure conjecture based on nothing. You are simply declaring something as truth.

Again, no it doesn't. This account does not even suggest what events occured in the history of religion, it merely talks about the overall trend in a given religion.

Furthermore I am not suggesting the events in the Bible are a distortion. I am only pointing it out as yet another possibility.

Really, I'm not even declaring anything as true. All I am doing is pointing out that your argument is invalid because given the premise (namely anthropological origins of religion) one can conclude anything about the truth of religion's origin accounts. That is because no version of the accounts is disjoint by nessisity.

Really, that is all I am attempting to show. I am not trying to prove any religion. I am merely pointing out that your argument is flawed by providing a counter-example. Namely, "there exists a potential version of events where both your premises are true and religion is true".

I really don't know what you were hoping to accomplish by bringing up induction.

Something you responded to in a seperate post, the point was distinct.

You made an error in the scientific method, I was pointing it out.

And I was not discussing the philosophy of science. I was responding to the original question posed in this post. "How can anyone believe in god?"

However, you were discussing the scientific method as part of your argument.

The scientific method is defined in it's philosophy, so by nessisity whenever you reference to the scientific method you reference to it's core philosophy.

Understand that philosophy is a rather loose term, and in this case it is just the methodology and it's logical justifacations.

I can tell you are a big fan of philosophy but I find it rather useless. If a student of philosophy can say something like "And remember this all has the assumption that the universe exists, something completely unprovable. " then I have no use for philosophy at all. It is a waste of time and leads to completely ******** notions.

******** why?

I understand operating under the assumption that the universe exists, but just because something is the popular assumption that does not make it true. All must be proven logically, otherwise it must be recognized that it is vulnerable to disproof.

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions." - Thomas Jefferson

Appeal to Authority fallacy. Jefferson was smart, but just because he said it doesn't make it true.

Logic is the only weapon to be used against any proposition. If a position cannot be defeated based on logic, then it is a reasonable position.

Of course the universe exists and there is plenty of evidence to support that.

And what of that evidence doesn't beg the question?

And no science does say that something is proven beyond reasonable doubt. Simply saying something is not disproven leads to no understanding at all. If that is all science could do then scientifically speaking, unicorns and pixies exist because they are not disproven. Really now, I can tell by your use of the word theory that you do not know as much about science as you think you do.

I never used "theory" in the scientific sense in that post...

I myself have brought up that issue MANY times.

As for "leading to no understanding"... you obviously have not studied enough of the methodology. I already pointed out where the understanding is, the null hypothesis.

The null hypothesis is obtained by induction, so in order to obtain it there must be an observed case. Because the null hypothesis is falsifiable by nessisity and is a "for all", it is then held up for disproval by observing cases that oppose it. If/when this occurs the null hypothesis is replaced by a new null hypothesis which accounts for the new information and the process continues.

This results in a gradual increase of understanding as null hypothesises are disproved and replaced with better ones. Over an infinite amount of time this becomes rigorious. I provided several examples previously.


So, scientifically speaking, Unicorns could exists, but their existance is rejected in the current null hypothesis. It will stay that way, at least unless unicorns do exist, in which case once they are observed, this observation will result in a rejection of the null, and a new null hypothesis which includes unicorns as existing.

And please, rather than just saying there is evidence outside the bible to show jesus existed, why don't you show it to me? I can't find it and I have been looking for the past 15 years. Show me something.

Evidence that a Joshua son of Joseph existed. There are several outside historical accounts, Josephus for example.

And the existence of the bible is evidence for little more than the imagination of man.

I'm sorry but from the prospective of a historian it's a valid historical document, not in it's the actual deeds but in the existance of the persons in said document. At least the new testament.

By all critical historical standards it is sufficent historical evidence and the only way to reject that is reject the existance of people with a similar or lower level of evidence... such as the majority of the Roman emperors. And this isn't even considering outside mentions.

Even 100 years for the documents isn't much (and that's for the oldest of the gospels). A single account of an existance of a person is considered more then enough to establish their existance even if it's over 200 years after the fact.

I'm sorry, but what is the justifacation for applying much heavier standards for the existance of Jesus then any other historical figure? Entire civilizations can be accepted as existing from finding one tiny partial account, or a scrap of bone, why not Jesus who the evidence is greater by so many magnitudes?

 

[Kur]

No really, understand that I am merely pointing out not nessisarily that anything is true.

Instead the possibility exists for your premises to be held and for religion to be true. This invalidates your argument.





And I never suggested that it HAD to be a quick switch. Tipping points are just single events that ultimately result in large-scale shifts. A gradual shift in the Hebrew's understanding of the same deity does not invalidate their belief system. The individual events would gradually shape their understanding of exactly who God was.

There always are lots of people who claim to be some sort of messiah. However, for whatever reason, Jesus was different. For whatever reason, Christianity




Again, no it doesn't. This account does not even suggest what events occured in the history of religion, it merely talks about the overall trend in a given religion.

Furthermore I am not suggesting the events in the Bible are a distortion. I am only pointing it out as yet another possibility.

Really, I'm not even declaring anything as true. All I am doing is pointing out that your argument is invalid because given the premise (namely anthropological origins of religion) one can conclude anything about the truth of religion's origin accounts. That is because no version of the accounts is disjoint by nessisity.

Really, that is all I am attempting to show. I am not trying to prove any religion. I am merely pointing out that your argument is flawed by providing a counter-example. Namely, "there exists a potential version of events where both your premises are true and religion is true".







Something you responded to in a seperate post, the point was distinct.

You made an error in the scientific method, I was pointing it out.



However, you were discussing the scientific method as part of your argument.

The scientific method is defined in it's philosophy, so by nessisity whenever you reference to the scientific method you reference to it's core philosophy.

Understand that philosophy is a rather loose term, and in this case it is just the methodology and it's logical justifacations.



******** why?

I understand operating under the assumption that the universe exists, but just because something is the popular assumption that does not make it true. All must be proven logically, otherwise it must be recognized that it is vulnerable to disproof.



Appeal to Authority fallacy. Jefferson was smart, but just because he said it doesn't make it true.

Logic is the only weapon to be used against any proposition. If a position cannot be defeated based on logic, then it is a reasonable position.



And what of that evidence doesn't beg the question?



I never used "theory" in the scientific sense in that post...

I myself have brought up that issue MANY times.

As for "leading to no understanding"... you obviously have not studied enough of the methodology. I already pointed out where the understanding is, the null hypothesis.

The null hypothesis is obtained by induction, so in order to obtain it there must be an observed case. Because the null hypothesis is falsifiable by nessisity and is a "for all", it is then held up for disproval by observing cases that oppose it. If/when this occurs the null hypothesis is replaced by a new null hypothesis which accounts for the new information and the process continues.

This results in a gradual increase of understanding as null hypothesises are disproved and replaced with better ones. Over an infinite amount of time this becomes rigorious. I provided several examples previously.


So, scientifically speaking, Unicorns could exists, but their existance is rejected in the current null hypothesis. It will stay that way, at least unless unicorns do exist, in which case once they are observed, this observation will result in a rejection of the null, and a new null hypothesis which includes unicorns as existing.



Evidence that a Joshua son of Joseph existed. There are several outside historical accounts, Josephus for example.



I'm sorry but from the prospective of a historian it's a valid historical document, not in it's the actual deeds but in the existance of the persons in said document. At least the new testament.

By all critical historical standards it is sufficent historical evidence and the only way to reject that is reject the existance of people with a similar or lower level of evidence... such as the majority of the Roman emperors. And this isn't even considering outside mentions.

Even 100 years for the documents isn't much (and that's for the oldest of the gospels). A single account of an existance of a person is considered more then enough to establish their existance even if it's over 200 years after the fact.

I'm sorry, but what is the justifacation for applying much heavier standards for the existance of Jesus then any other historical figure? Entire civilizations can be accepted as existing from finding one tiny partial account, or a scrap of bone, why not Jesus who the evidence is greater by so many magnitudes?

You know, I really hate debating with people like you. The 'everything is possible so whatever you said is wrong' people.

So, is it possible that the ancient hebrews stumbled through an evolution of religion starting with sun worship and ending with the current christian belief system which happens to be true? Yes it is possible. BUT the odds are so far stacked against it that it is ridiculous to lend any credibility to it. The fact that there is a 1 in 10^100000000000 (or whatever the odds actually are) chance it is true in no way invalidates my argument. There is a such thing as statistically impossible which science is very comfortable saying when in regards to odds this long.

Yes, for whatever reason, jesus was chosen as the son of god, out of the dozens of other sons of god out there. Just as I chose ganondorf as my main in smash bros, does that mean he is the one true smasher out of all the other possible choices? I fail to see how this could be anything other than evidence he was anything but a normal man if he ever existed at all.


The universe. Does it exist or doesn't it? Well according to you who knows? Maybe we are all the figment of somebodies imagination, or just the dreams of some giant sleeping alien. Maybe the earth is really just some zoo at an intergalactic circus. I could ramble off any number of ridiculous, nonsensical things and according to you any one of them is possible and not only that, but it is possible that all of them are true.

I am sorry but I can not accept that. There is no logic in it, there is no reason. This is no better than blind faith. Claiming that any of it has any validity at all simply because it is possible, leaves one completely closed off to any real science. No scientist in his right mind would ever entertain such notions. Of course science says it is technically possible, but there is a limit to that expectation.


I was not making an appeal to authority. I was stating something I believe to be true but did not want to give a quote uncredited. There are simply some questions, statements, or propositions so profoundly stupid that they do not deserve anything but ridicule. And the notion that you are trying to put forth here is one of them.

If you can't accept even the evidence for something based on your 'all things are possible' notion, then you may as well throw any and all science out the window. Are you really typing on a computer or is it just your imagination? Are you even real? Am I actually the only person in the universe and everything around me is one big hallucination designed to keep me occupied? All things are possible right?

And I apologize then for jumping to conclusions concerning your use of the word theory. I so often hear it used improperly that I wish it was only a scientific term.

Null Hypothesis. Kind of an outdated term really. I have seen very few uses for null hypothesis testing outside of statistical sciences and even then if a null hypothesis is deemed certain to be true then it can be rejected outright. Most actual scientists regard null hypothesis as "mindless statistics" or "ritual conducted to convince ourselves our theories have enough evidence" So in (almost) no way is all science based on the null hypothesis. Very little science even uses the process and it is really only useful in statistical uses such as performing a study to see if dogs prefer brand X food or brand Y. The null hypothesis would be that both brands are equally popular. It would even be rather difficult to apply that sort of testing to many scientific endeavours.

Josephus? A former jewish priest who was likely an early christian mentions jesus in one of his books? You don't say.

I do not believe that the existence of jesus is held to any higher standard than anything else. I do believe you are exaggerating when you say that entire civilizations are known from a single bone chip. That would just be ludicrous. And the idea that civilizations are know from single passages in historical documents is equally as silly considering nobody with any sort of reason believes the city of Atlantis ever existed.

I honestly do not know much about the lineage of roman emperors so I don't have much to say other than I doubt the identity of the majority of roman emperors is known by less evidence than jesus. And again, I don't know how many orders of magnitude you are thinking of, but the new testament is hardly a great source or evidence for anything.

Sure the bible is full of people that actually existed at or around the time is was written. But so what? that is what you would expect to see in a book written in a certain time period. That in no way lends any credibility to the mystical voodoo and existence of jesus that also appears in the bible. It just means the authors used real people in an attempt to relate the book to the real world.

 

[RDK]

I'm sorry, but what is the justifacation for applying much heavier standards for the existance of Jesus then any other historical figure? Entire civilizations can be accepted as existing from finding one tiny partial account, or a scrap of bone, why not Jesus who the evidence is greater by so many magnitudes?

The fact that current historians / archaeologists make false conclusions based off of shoddy evidence shouldn't excuse Christians to do the same in the case of Jesus.

And as far as outside mentions and alternative sources go, even those still don't prove that EVERYTHING recorded in the Bible is 100% true.

 

[mzink*]

Not only that, but it's common for people to use the bible to justify there own petty phobias. Hitler? He used the bible to justify the holocaust. Slave traders? They used the bible to justify slaves. Homophobes? They use the bible to justify that. The bible has become less a symbol of Christianity, and more a way to avoid getting in trouble because if you do get in trouble they would be 'insulting your religion'.

Good point.

A question I want to ask, why is it that every religious person I've met believes without a shadow of a doubt that their religion is the truth? There are soo many different types of religions and variations of christianity and they all tell you THIS is the truth, others are WRONG. I went to a Lutheran church when I was younger that warned you against other christians, saying they were false and all for show. That catholics distorted the christian religion. What do you do when you come across a person of another religion that is as blindly worshipful as you? You can't say he is wrong, he is just as dedicated and faithful and rooted in his belief as you are. How can one POSSIBLY discern what is really truth. There have been wars fought over religion, slaughter in the name of it. Why should anyone trust any one of you?

 

[RDK]

That's where the blind faith part comes in. There's nothing more detrimental to society than a 100% fanatic who won't budge on any issue. Keeping on open mind, even in discussions like these, is essential to growing in knowledge.

That's why science will always > religion.

 

[SkylerOcon]

Good point.

A question I want to ask, why is it that every religious person I've met believes without a shadow of a doubt that their religion is the truth? There are soo many different types of religions and variations of christianity and they all tell you THIS is the truth, others are WRONG. I went to a Lutheran church when I was younger that warned you against other christians, saying they were false and all for show. That catholics distorted the christian religion. What do you do when you come across a person of another religion that is as blindly worshipful as you? You can't say he is wrong, he is just as dedicated and faithful and rooted in his belief as you are. How can one POSSIBLY discern what is really truth. There have been wars fought over religion, slaughter in the name of it. Why should anyone trust any one of you?

That's just human nature. We're stubborn and always think that what we believe in is the truth. I try my best to have an open mind, but when it comes to religion, there are just to many people who do the whole 'blind faith' thing for me to even respect religion.

 

[yossarian22]

You understand this I think, but let me reiterate, science can distinguish between science and non-science based on falsifiability alone, since falsifiability is the criteria for something being scientific.

And that is my problem with the statements that follow along the vein of "Ssomething untestable and unfalsifiable is useless." The scientific method cannot pass [it].

This is a stupid statement and has nothing to do with anything. When accepting casuality, of course the universe exists. Now you're just getting into symantics, which will again no doubt throw us into another argument that will never end

It is very relevant.
The girth of posts appealing to science fail to realize that science itself fails the requirements they lay down. By extension, this hits the notions of existence (be it of ourselves or the universe) and causality.

You know, I really hate debating with people like you. The 'everything is possible so whatever you said is wrong' people.

It seems you have misunderstood adumbrodeus' point.
That a religion has anthropogenic origins does not suddenly invalidate that religion. Accepting your premises, there is no real reason why Christianity cannot be true. The possibility is open given the very premises you outline, therefore your argument fails.

So, is it possible that the ancient hebrews stumbled through an evolution of religion starting with sun worship and ending with the current christian belief system which happens to be true? Yes it is possible. BUT the odds are so far stacked against it that it is ridiculous to lend any credibility to it. The fact that there is a 1 in 10^100000000000 (or whatever the odds actually are) chance it is true in no way invalidates my argument. There is a such thing as statistically impossible which science is very comfortable saying when in regards to odds this long.

And how, pray tell, did you generate this number?
How do you know that it is not 0.9999999999999999999999999 out of 1?

Yes, for whatever reason, jesus was chosen as the son of god, out of the dozens of other sons of god out there. Just as I chose ganondorf as my main in smash bros, does that mean he is the one true smasher out of all the other possible choices? I fail to see how this could be anything other than evidence he was anything but a normal man if he ever existed at all.

I don't see how this is evidence that he was not the son of god.

The universe. Does it exist or doesn't it? Well according to you who knows?

Your argument to absurdity is remarkably weak.
Who does know whether or not it exists? Tell me how we can confirm the existence of the universe or whether existence is even possible.

I am sorry but I can not accept that. There is no logic in it, there is no reason.

Stop butchering "logic".

This is no better than blind faith. Claiming that any of it has any validity at all simply because it is possible, leaves one completely closed off to any real science.

I don't see adumbrodeus saying anywhere that the claims are true. He is only saying that your argument is invalid because the possibility is there

I was not making an appeal to authority. I was stating something I believe to be true but did not want to give a quote uncredited. There are simply some questions, statements, or propositions so profoundly stupid that they do not deserve anything but ridicule. And the notion that you are trying to put forth here is one of them.

Really, why?
If you have to resort to ridicule to reject something, then there is something wrong with your position.

If you can't accept even the evidence for something based on your 'all things are possible' notion, then you may as well throw any and all science out the window.

Where the bloody hell did you pull this "notion" from?
He is not making the claim that Christianity is true at all, merely that the premises of your argument are not disjoint from a truthful Christianity. They could be, but so what? It makes your argument nothing more than a massive waste of space.

It would even be rather difficult to apply that sort of testing to many scientific endeavours.

What do you think a hypothesis is?
"X and Y observed"
"Perhaps X therefore Y?"
Null "X and Y are unrelated"
Alternative "X and Y are related"
Perhaps the positions are switched. It all depends on what X and Y are and whether or not they conflict with past hypothesis.

 

[snex]

Just once wouldn't you love for someone to simply show you the evidence for God's existence? No arm-twisting. No statements of, "You just have to believe." If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away. It is like if someone refuses to believe that people have walked on the moon, then no amount of information is going to change their thinking. Photographs of astronauts walking on the moon, interviews with the astronauts, moon rocks...all the evidence would be worthless, because the person has already concluded that people cannot go to the moon.

When it comes to the possibility of God's existence, the Bible says that there are people who have seen sufficient evidence, but they have suppressed the truth about God. On the other hand, for those who want to know God if he is there, he says, "You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you." Before you look at the facts surrounding God's existence, ask yourself, If God does exist, would I want to know him?

just like you said... we have photographs of astronauts walking on the moon, interviews with the astronauts, and moon rocks.

got any photographs of god? interviews with god? heaven rocks?

 

[Kur]

It seems you have misunderstood adumbrodeus' point.
That a religion has anthropogenic origins does not suddenly invalidate that religion. Accepting your premises, there is no real reason why Christianity cannot be true. The possibility is open given the very premises you outline, therefore your argument fails.

I understand his point. But you are missing my point. Either christianity is true or it isn't. If the origins of the religion can be shown to be anything other than what the religion says it is, then that is a huge portion of that religion shown to be completely false.

And how, pray tell, did you generate this number?
How do you know that it is not 0.9999999999999999999999999 out of 1?

By pressing the 0 key a bunch of times. I thought by putting "or whatever the odds actually are" in parenthesis would show I made the number up. I only used that number to show how ridiculously small the odds are of that particular event.

I don't see how this is evidence that he was not the son of god.

Because he was one of many. There was nothing remarkable about him. There were other sons of god out there with more followers and credibility than him. Some of those other sons of god even have more evidence for their existence then jesus. I find it highly likely that some 100 years after the time period that jesus was supposed to have lived, that the authors just made him up instead of using a real person that anybody might have known and could out as a fraud.

Your argument to absurdity is remarkably weak.
Who does know whether or not it exists? Tell me how we can confirm the existence of the universe or whether existence is even possible.

If not existing then what are we doing? I am not here to argue useless philosophy that leads to nothing but dead ends. BOTH sides of this debate agree the universe exists and you two coming in here and screaming "You don't know that for sure!" adds absolutely nothing to the conversation. And I have already said, if you entertain the idea that evidence for anything doesn't exist, or "whether existence is even possible" then you are just throwing science out the window.

Stop butchering "logic".

Prove it exists. You want me to prove the existence of the universe or even the existence of existence, then you prove to me that logic exists and I will do my best to avoid butchering it.

I don't see adumbrodeus saying anywhere that the claims are true. He is only saying that your argument is invalid because the possibility is there

I never claimed he was saying anything was true. If I did it was a mistake because I was up very late last night typing those replies. And again, yes I agree the possibility is there, yet it is so small that it is statistically impossible and as such can be rejected. Making his entire claim invalid.

Really, why?
If you have to resort to ridicule to reject something, then there is something wrong with your position.

Because you can't argue with stupid. And I can turn it back around on you. Why not?

Where the bloody hell did you pull this "notion" from?
He is not making the claim that Christianity is true at all, merely that the premises of your argument are not disjoint from a truthful Christianity. They could be, but so what? It makes your argument nothing more than a massive waste of space.

I know that he is not claiming christianity as true. I never said that he was. I know his entire wall of text is concerning my premise. The problem, as I have pointed out a dozen times, is that just because all things are possible does not mean something statistically impossible invalidates my premise. The could be of my premise is far, far more likely than the could be of his. Statistically speaking his could be is impossible.

What do you think a hypothesis is?
"X and Y observed"
"Perhaps X therefore Y?"
Null "X and Y are unrelated"
Alternative "X and Y are related"
Perhaps the positions are switched. It all depends on what X and Y are and whether or not they conflict with past hypothesis.

What do you think a hypothesis is?

I wasn't talking about hypothesis, I was talking about null hypothesis, which most of the time are not needed. They are more often than not just ritual done out of tradition. The null hypothesis is not required when falsifying most hypothesis. That was my point.




And this all leads me to my final question. What are you two doing here? This is a debate concerning the existence of god. If you do not have a side and are simply here to point out flaws in arguments without adding any of your own, then you are not debating the topic. You are doing nothing but detracting from the debate. Unless you have a position on the matter, you have no business being here. Whether or not here exists.

In all the text adumbrodeus has typed, to me anyway, he hasn't given a single argument for or against the existence of god. Not that he could given his 'all things are possible' view of everything.

 

[AlcyoNite]

Those for and against the existence of God are principally different. I do not think the scientific method can prove anything concerning spirituality. People constantly question the existence of anything beyond the physical. There are "ghost" myths and other tales, and there are also unexplainable things that occur in nature, such as gravity. Yes we can outline gravity and formulate a constant that can measure its effect. But no one knows why it exists. No one knows how it exists.

Even after defending the validity of science and Christianity, I believe that science cannot explain everything and that some Christian beliefs are outisde the realm of modern logical believability. But I don't care. I don't live my life by the scientific method. I don't know why anyone else would want to. I'm also not telling you that you shouldn't. But I'm pretty sure that you don't. Even though you're ridiculing me for not.

The purpose of this topic is to put God under this spotlight that aims to ridicule the concept of God as contradicted by modern science. I am not a Scientologist and I am against the claim that everything in the universe can be explained by human science. However, Christians and Scientologists both agree that there is a higher power. The higher power I believe in works in "mysterious ways" and declares that humans CANNOT fully comprehend him.

Ultimately, anyone who opposed the topic creator was doomed from the start. The simple fact is that God is right in that he cannot be fully described with human logic. Any other evidence for his existence (outside from the fact that we cannot completely grasp his essence) I have already described or omitted due to the fact that God is everywhere and omnipotent. Evidence of his majesty exists for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

 

[RDK]

Those for and against the existence of God are principally different. I do not think the scientific method can prove anything concerning spirituality. People constantly question the existence of anything beyond the physical. There are "ghost" myths and other tales, and there are also unexplainable things that occur in nature, such as gravity. Yes we can outline gravity and formulate a constant that can measure its effect. But no one knows why it exists. No one knows how it exists.

Even after defending the validity of science and Christianity, I believe that science cannot explain everything and that some Christian beliefs are outisde the realm of modern logical believability. But I don't care. I don't live my life by the scientific method. I don't know why anyone else would want to. I'm also not telling you that you shouldn't. But I'm pretty sure that you don't. Even though you're ridiculing me for not.

The purpose of this topic is to put God under this spotlight that aims to ridicule the concept of God as contradicted by modern science. I am not a Scientologist and I am against the claim that everything in the universe can be explained by human science. However, Christians and Scientologists both agree that there is a higher power. The higher power I believe in works in "mysterious ways" and declares that humans CANNOT fully comprehend him.

Ultimately, anyone who opposed the topic creator was doomed from the start. The simple fact is that God is right in that he cannot be fully described with human logic. Any other evidence for his existence (outside from the fact that we cannot completely grasp his essence) I have already described or omitted due to the fact that God is everywhere and omnipotent. Evidence of his majesty exists for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

God cannot be fully described by human logic....according to the Bible. You have to realize that you're using circular reasoning here. We refute the validity of the Bible, yet you continue to base your arguments off of the supposed authority of what the Bible has to say. We refute the concept of God, and you return to "He exists because the Bible says so".

The concept of an omnipotent and onmnipresent god is self-defeating and impossible by today's scientific standards. No doubt Yossarian or some loony will counter my post by claiming that science fails by its own standards, but then fail to elaborate on a better system for understanding the world around us.

 

[Dexter Morgan]

People, who are against Christianity like to bring up, "God created us in His image." Following this, they usually look at themselves with the a silence air to let people get the point they're trying to get across. Then, they'll say something like, "Is this really what God looks like?" With that sentence, they think they've made a good point.

I think when God says He created us in His vision, it means that we, like Him, were made to be creative. Which, is true. Compared to animals, or other species, humans are the only ones who are really creative. Animals live the same way every time one becomes into existence. They are born with instinct, instead of needing to be taught things.

Humans have and still create things constantly. And I don't mean, 'create a drawing' or 'create a program of some type'. This is a big confusion. People are born to believe that if you're not good at art, then you're not creative. They say, 'I'm not creative, I'm good at math'. This is simply asinine. Just an illusion. Art was created by humans. So, before there was art, then what was creative?

Lets say everyday you had toast for breakfast. Then one day you decide to have cereal instead of the toast. That is creative. Lets say you were driving down the road, and you see another vehicle trying to get into a busy line of cars. If you stop and signal with your hand for them to slip into the line, that's creative.


Nice little video I found up about the existence of God. I found this very interesting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g2kAN2SBRs

 

[RDK]

People, who are against Christianity like to bring up, "God created us in His image." Following this, they usually look at themselves with the a silence air to let people get the point they're trying to get across. Then, they'll say something like, "Is this really what God looks like?" With that sentence, they think they've made a good point.

I think when God says He created us in His vision, it means that we, like Him, were made to be creative. Which, is true. Compared to animals, or other species, humans are the only ones who are really creative. Animals live the same way every time one becomes into existence. They are born with instinct, instead of needing to be taught things.

Humans have and still create things constantly. And I don't mean, 'create a drawing' or 'create a program of some type'. This is a big confusion. People are born to believe that if you're not good at art, then you're not creative. They say, 'I'm not creative, I'm good at math'. This is simply asinine. Just an illusion. Art was created by humans. So, before there was art, then what was creative?

Lets say everyday you had toast for breakfast. Then one day you decide to have cereal instead of the toast. That is creative. Lets say you were driving down the road, and you see another vehicle trying to get into a busy line of cars. If you stop and signal with your hand for them to slip into the line, that's creative.


Nice little video I found up about the existence of God. I found this very interesting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g2kAN2SBRs

Making choices isn't creative. Even the lowest life forms can do that. Also, art is subjective.

Don't know what point you're trying to make here; you didn't even counter my post. Seems like you just pulled this one out of your ***.

 

[AlcyoNite]

God cannot be fully described by human logic....according to the Bible. You have to realize that you're using circular reasoning here. We refute the validity of the Bible, yet you continue to base your arguments off of the supposed authority of what the Bible has to say. We refute the concept of God, and you return to "He exists because the Bible says so".

The concept of an omnipotent and onmnipresent god is self-defeating and impossible by today's scientific standards. No doubt Yossarian or some loony will counter my post by claiming that science fails by its own standards, but then fail to elaborate on a better system for understanding the world around us.

I was really likening the fact that God can't be explained by human logic to the fact that some scientific phenomena also can't be explained; my reference to the Bible led into my validation of the Bible in that it references the very things we argue.

 

[RDK]

ZOMG, bananas fit in my hand--God must be real!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmBS7QGWAjQ&feature=related

 

[AlcyoNite]

ZOMG, bananas fit in my hand--God must be real!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmBS7QGWAjQ&feature=related

I really don't know what to think about that, but Itdoes verif my argument that intelligent design is one of the many evidences of God, but of course, that's no reason for you to believe, nor is it a reason that Bible says for you to believe.

 

[RDK]

I really don't know what to think about that, but Itdoes verif my argument that intelligent design is one of the many evidences of God, but of course, that's no reason for you to believe, nor is it a reason that Bible says for you to believe.

Life adapted around our planet's conditions, not the other way around.

 

[AlcyoNite]

Life adapted around our planet's conditions, not the other way around.

You don't know that. Evolution is just as provable as the Big Bang Theory. I actually think both are very possible, but man's gasp on those concepts is relatively vague. And I still think intelligent design is evident in evolution.

 

[RDK]

Evolution (or at least our current understanding of it) directly contradicts the Bible and Christianity. The two cannot go hand in hand. If evolution is correct, then humans aren't set apart from the rest of animalia.

 

[DuskMarthWater]

The phrase God created man in his own image simply means that the reason we have two legs, two arms, two eyes and a head is because that is how God looks. He does not look like a dog or any other animal, he looks like us. That is the interpretation of that line.

Yes, this is true. But science cannot prove things that are considered...hmmm, what's a good word...I don't know, but it can't prove things that are based on faith. Just as faith has no empirical evidence that things exist either. It is a continuous circle that can never complete itself.

And when you say that humans aren't set apart from the rest of animalia, what do you mean exactly? That we evolved from them and therefore used to be some of them?

EDIT: When you say that God cannot be explained by human logic according to the Bible, are you suggesting you perhaps have a belief in God RDK? Because you did not completely refute it in your post.

 

[RDK]

I was merely playing devil's advocate to show that he was using circular reasoning in his proof of God.

About my believing in a "god"--I suppose you could say that in some sene I do, although it's more of an acknowledgement of the possibility that there could be a higher power. In the meantime, there's no reason to concretely believe in a deity until science enlightens us.

 

[DuskMarthWater]

Oh ok. I do that too.

Hmmm...and why do you have that acknowledgement?

And I see your point when you say there's no reason to concretely believe there is a higher power, because that would defeat the entire purpose of religion, though I'm probably taking in this in another direction from yourself. If you knew that religion was really connected to a higher power, then the key to all religions (or at least, the key that people say is a key), faith, would no longer have a meaning. Faith is believing in things that are hoped for and not seen. If you see it, you are no longer acting on faith, because you now have a knowledge of the existence. I'm not sure science will ever be able to enlighten us quite that much.

 

[adumbrodeus]

You know, I really hate debating with people like you. The 'everything is possible so whatever you said is wrong' people.

So, prove me wrong.

You're making a "for all" argument.

Which means that yes, if anything else is possible, then you're wrong. Period.

So, is it possible that the ancient hebrews stumbled through an evolution of religion starting with sun worship and ending with the current christian belief system which happens to be true? Yes it is possible. BUT the odds are so far stacked against it that it is ridiculous to lend any credibility to it. The fact that there is a 1 in 10^100000000000 (or whatever the odds actually are) chance it is true in no way invalidates my argument. There is a such thing as statistically impossible which science is very comfortable saying when in regards to odds this long.

If a deity does exist then it's a conscious direction of said groups in the evolution of their religion, significantly increasing the chances of them gradually evolving into the correct religion. That would be the whole point of the various pieces of divine intervention.

And you can't assume that a deity doesn't exist, that's begging the question.



Furthermore, a 1 in 10^100000000000 chance is enough to not accept a universal statement. Elementary logic should tell you that.

Sure, you can state that the null hypothesis is that the 1 in 10^100000000000 didn't happen, but you must be prepared to reject that null like any other.

Yes, for whatever reason, jesus was chosen as the son of god, out of the dozens of other sons of god out there. Just as I chose ganondorf as my main in smash bros, does that mean he is the one true smasher out of all the other possible choices? I fail to see how this could be anything other than evidence he was anything but a normal man if he ever existed at all.

Amusing....

Did I ever say when debating you on this topic, that Jesus is the one true God?

No, I was merely pointing out that your argument doesn't prove that Jesus isn't.



I'm not interested in proving that Jesus is the messiah, I merely saw a weak argument that said that he wasn't and moved to attack it. I would have done the same if you took the opposite side with an argument of similar rigor.

The universe. Does it exist or doesn't it? Well according to you who knows? Maybe we are all the figment of somebodies imagination, or just the dreams of some giant sleeping alien. Maybe the earth is really just some zoo at an intergalactic circus. I could ramble off any number of ridiculous, nonsensical things and according to you any one of them is possible and not only that, but it is possible that all of them are true.

I am sorry but I can not accept that. There is no logic in it, there is no reason. This is no better than blind faith. Claiming that any of it has any validity at all simply because it is possible, leaves one completely closed off to any real science. No scientist in his right mind would ever entertain such notions. Of course science says it is technically possible, but there is a limit to that expectation.

I'm not talking about POSSIBLE.

I'm talking about proof.

The existence of the universe is an existential issue.

No, what proof do you have that does not beg the question, in other words, evidence that does not assume the universe exists?

I've been trying to do such a proof, but so far I haven't been able to make the jump from "I think therefore I am" to linguistic determinism.

I was not making an appeal to authority. I was stating something I believe to be true but did not want to give a quote uncredited. There are simply some questions, statements, or propositions so profoundly stupid that they do not deserve anything but ridicule. And the notion that you are trying to put forth here is one of them.

Who defines "ridiculous"? You?

What right have you to define what is ridiculous and what isn't?

It used to be "ridiculous" that the world was round.


Logic defines what is ridiculous, not your fancy, so use logic.

If you can't accept even the evidence for something based on your 'all things are possible' notion, then you may as well throw any and all science out the window. Are you really typing on a computer or is it just your imagination? Are you even real? Am I actually the only person in the universe and everything around me is one big hallucination designed to keep me occupied? All things are possible right?

*sigh*

The universe is not an "all things are possible" issue. It's a "show me some proof" issue.

Actually neither is your anthropology issue actually. The issue there is that you have not proven anything.

And I apologize then for jumping to conclusions concerning your use of the word theory. I so often hear it used improperly that I wish it was only a scientific term.

Believe me, same here.

Null Hypothesis. Kind of an outdated term really. I have seen very few uses for null hypothesis testing outside of statistical sciences and even then if a null hypothesis is deemed certain to be true then it can be rejected outright. Most actual scientists regard null hypothesis as "mindless statistics" or "ritual conducted to convince ourselves our theories have enough evidence" So in (almost) no way is all science based on the null hypothesis. Very little science even uses the process and it is really only useful in statistical uses such as performing a study to see if dogs prefer brand X food or brand Y. The null hypothesis would be that both brands are equally popular. It would even be rather difficult to apply that sort of testing to many scientific endeavours.

That's not the case.

It may not be explicitly mentioned, but it's still there.

Because without it, science is a completely and utterly useless methodology.

Really, I'm surprised that none of the atheists on this board have jumped on this immediately.


Without the concept of the null hypothesis, all science has to reference to to is induction (observances of events and things to draw a conclusion), which can prove the existence of individual things, but it cannot prove a "for all" statement.

The reason is simply this, when you observe something, you cannot account for the infinite number of possible things that you missed. The more you observe, the greater the chance that you didn't just miss the cases when it didn't hold, but you can not be sure until you observe infinite times.

Take for example, numbers. How about I say that for integers greater or equal to 0, the square of the number equal the number added to itself, and now I'll prove it with induction...

0+0=0, 0^2=0 Fine.

2+2=4, 2^2=4, good.

See, it holds in all observed cases, therefore it must be true!

And since 2/infinity is effectively the same proportion as any finite number over infinity, the number of tests done by the most rigorous of induction testing over the amount of actual cases to observe is about the same.

Quite simply, this is the problem of induction. This is why math uniformly rejects induction as a valid reason for accepting anything.

Science cannot however, because induction is the only way to get information, which is why science settled on falsifying things bit by bit, because infinite tests is the only way to make induction rigorous.

Anyway, if it were considered outdated, why would the process I'm describing be present on this biology course from the university of Cincinnati?

"Hypotheses can be proven wrong/incorrect, but can never be proven or confirmed with absolute certainty. It is impossible to test all given conditions, and someone with more knowledge, sometime in the future, may find a condition under which the hypothesis does not hold true."

There you have it, not the term but certainly the concept. The problem of induction is only solved by this model.

Josephus? A former jewish priest who was likely an early christian mentions jesus in one of his books? You don't say.

I do not believe that the existence of jesus is held to any higher standard than anything else. I do believe you are exaggerating when you say that entire civilizations are known from a single bone chip. That would just be ludicrous. And the idea that civilizations are know from single passages in historical documents is equally as silly considering nobody with any sort of reason believes the city of Atlantis ever existed.

Then you obviously have no idea how much information can be held in such tiny things.

Perhaps a course on archeology would be in order.

I honestly do not know much about the lineage of roman emperors so I don't have much to say other than I doubt the identity of the majority of roman emperors is known by less evidence than jesus. And again, I don't know how many orders of magnitude you are thinking of, but the new testament is hardly a great source or evidence for anything.

Why is the Bible such a poor source for establishing the existence of persons?

It's entirely consistent with the literary style of the period, and while it's quite obvious that it doesn't prove the miraculous events, the fact is that this form of exaggeration was quite common in the time period. It was just as present in the historical documentation on Cesar.

Sure the bible is full of people that actually existed at or around the time is was written. But so what? that is what you would expect to see in a book written in a certain time period. That in no way lends any credibility to the mystical voodoo and existence of jesus that also appears in the bible. It just means the authors used real people in an attempt to relate the book to the real world.

Again, why?

What you are suggesting flies in the face of how how archeology deals with these kinds of things.

Exaggerations happen, which is why numbers are considered untrustworthy, and miracles are considered untrustworthy, and the like. But the existence of the person and that events that can be distorted to be the exaggerated event, that's not the issue. What the person actually did is always in question of course, but their reliability is still present.

Again, it might be an eye-opener for you to do a course on this, especially to understand why. That will explain why doubts of Jesus' existence are rarely taken seriously by critical historians, but by the same token, his miracles are not considered reliable.

The fact that current historians / archaeologists make false conclusions based off of shoddy evidence shouldn't excuse Christians to do the same in the case of Jesus.

Except that the evidence isn't shoddy.

These methods of critically reading historical documentation have been tested many many times, otherwise archaeologists and historians would not use them.

 

[RDK]

My post about shoddy evidence was in response to someone's remark about archaeologists claiming whole civilizations existed on the basis of one bone chip. Ridiculous things like that obviously do not happen.

And not to jab, but I find it funny that you expound upon the fallacies of scientific induction in response to Kur's post, but then immediately appeal to it when stating how time-tested historians' system of document validation is.

 

[adumbrodeus]

My post about shoddy evidence was in response to someone's remark about archaeologists claiming whole civilizations existed on the basis of one bone chip. Ridiculous things like that obviously do not happen.

And not to jab, but I find it funny that you expound upon the fallacies of scientific induction in response to Kur's post, but then immediately appeal to it when stating how time-tested historians' system of document validation is.

Ah, but did I actually say was it actually "proof positive"?

No, it's just establishing the null hypothesis.


Similar to how the validity of these methodologies are the null hypothesis.


P.S. The bone fragment was hyperbole, regardless, depending on condition it could give enough information to do that. Generally such things are sedge ways to further study.

 

[AlcyoNite]

Evolution (or at least our current understanding of it) directly contradicts the Bible and Christianity. The two cannot go hand in hand. If evolution is correct, then humans aren't set apart from the rest of animalia.

Humans are visibly set apart from other animals. Evolution could very well be a process that God put in place for humans to have come about in a perfectly scientifically explainable way (while very complex). Just look at the food chain or the massive changes to the earth that were only possible by humans. This interpretation that the Bible claims that God defied some natural law by creating us is not necessarily justified. Just as God didn't take massive hands and mold the Earth (as he has no other physical manifestation aside from his son Jesus), he probably did not physically raise Adam from the dirt of the Earth and perform open cavity surgery to take a rib from his chest to create Eve, etc. Those fairy tales don't make sense to me. But God speaks figuratively as well as literally, giving us the knowledge he wants us to know. A good pastor will explain the literary elements and references and metaphors, etc to his congregation. Actually, the Bible somteimes seems to me to be a book meant to be deciphered in some respects.

Aside from its religious value, the Bible is actually a very good book. It is used in public literature classes in plenty of schools. It's not some guidebook that will only tell you fact in its most literal sense. Much of it is up for interpretation (but accurate interpretation), and some fail at this part.

 

[Kur]

So, prove me wrong.

You're making a "for all" argument.

Which means that yes, if anything else is possible, then you're wrong. Period.

If a deity does exist then it's a conscious direction of said groups in the evolution of their religion, significantly increasing the chances of them gradually evolving into the correct religion. That would be the whole point of the various pieces of divine intervention.

And you can't assume that a deity doesn't exist, that's begging the question.

Fine. Anything and everything is possible. It is possible that a deity exists and that by some slight intervention (or none at all since no credible case of such can be found) a single tribe of ancient man stumbled through religious evolution and ended up with the one correct religion in the world. No matter how stupid, no matter how unlikely, no matter how incredibly moronic the premise, it is possible simply because you don't know anything for absolutely sure. Our entire knowledge based is centered around the fact that statistically impossible things might happen when we aren't looking.

Furthermore, a 1 in 10^100000000000 chance is enough to not accept a universal statement. Elementary logic should tell you that.

Sure, you can state that the null hypothesis is that the 1 in 10^100000000000 didn't happen, but you must be prepared to reject that null like any other.

Which is why I am not accepting it...

And why would I not be prepared to reject it? Show me some evidence to contradict it.

Amusing....

Isn't it? You got to have some humor in a debate.

Did I ever say when debating you on this topic, that Jesus is the one true God?

No, I was merely pointing out that your argument doesn't prove that Jesus isn't.

I never claimed you said such a thing either. I was asked why I see it as evidence he is not the son of god and that was my explanation. By the teachings of the christian religion, the son of god could raise the dead, heal the sick, walk on water, blah blah blah. So if there are several dozen accounts of such people, all with nearly identical histories and stories (some with more evidence of existing than others) then either all of them are the son of god, or, unless some evidence turns up that any of those amazing things happened, then none of them are the son of god. The christian religion does not speak of the multiple sons of god, it speaks of one son of god.

I'm not interested in proving that Jesus is the messiah, I merely saw a weak argument that said that he wasn't and moved to attack it. I would have done the same if you took the opposite side with an argument of similar rigor.

Again, I never said you were trying to prove jesus is the son of god.

I'm not talking about POSSIBLE.

I'm talking about proof.

The existence of the universe is an existential issue.

No, what proof do you have that does not beg the question, in other words, evidence that does not assume the universe exists?

I've been trying to do such a proof, but so far I haven't been able to make the jump from "I think therefore I am" to linguistic determinism.

Well something is containing all the matter and energy that exists. Something is expanding at an ever increasing rate. Something had a 'big bang' some 14 billion years ago. Something is out there that we live inside of. Unless you are prepared to say you might not exist (which I fear you are) then the universe has to exist (whether as science believes it or in some other form) to allow you to exist.

Of course you can claim I have no proof any of that exists either. Probably tell me I am begging the question. Would the burden of proof not be on somebody who claims the universe does not exist?

Who defines "ridiculous"? You?

Actually it is people. Usage of the word decides what the definition is. Currently the definition is: arousing or deserving ridicule : absurd, preposterous.

What right have you to define what is ridiculous and what isn't?

It used to be "ridiculous" that the world was round.


Logic defines what is ridiculous, not your fancy, so use logic.

Who are you to decide what is logical?

It seems illogical to me to bring philosophy into a scientific debate. Science can manage very well without some philosopher wagging his finger saying "Prove the universe exists! Prove that every religion isn't right! Prove that all things are not possible! Prove that your evidence for that other stuff exists!"

*sigh*

The universe is not an "all things are possible" issue. It's a "show me some proof" issue.

Actually neither is your anthropology issue actually. The issue there is that you have not proven anything.

See above.

That's not the case.

It may not be explicitly mentioned, but it's still there.

Because without it, science is a completely and utterly useless methodology.

Really, I'm surprised that none of the atheists on this board have jumped on this immediately.


Without the concept of the null hypothesis, all science has to reference to to is induction (observances of events and things to draw a conclusion), which can prove the existence of individual things, but it cannot prove a "for all" statement.

The reason is simply this, when you observe something, you cannot account for the infinite number of possible things that you missed. The more you observe, the greater the chance that you didn't just miss the cases when it didn't hold, but you can not be sure until you observe infinite times.

Take for example, numbers. How about I say that for integers greater or equal to 0, the square of the number equal the number added to itself, and now I'll prove it with induction...

0+0=0, 0^2=0 Fine.

2+2=4, 2^2=4, good.

See, it holds in all observed cases, therefore it must be true!

And since 2/infinity is effectively the same proportion as any finite number over infinity, the number of tests done by the most rigorous of induction testing over the amount of actual cases to observe is about the same.

Quite simply, this is the problem of induction. This is why math uniformly rejects induction as a valid reason for accepting anything.

Science cannot however, because induction is the only way to get information, which is why science settled on falsifying things bit by bit, because infinite tests is the only way to make induction rigorous.

Anyway, if it were considered outdated, why would the process I'm describing be present on this biology course from the university of Cincinnati?

"Hypotheses can be proven wrong/incorrect, but can never be proven or confirmed with absolute certainty. It is impossible to test all given conditions, and someone with more knowledge, sometime in the future, may find a condition under which the hypothesis does not hold true."

There you have it, not the term but certainly the concept. The problem of induction is only solved by this model.

Yeah.

I don't recall saying that null hypothesis were never used anymore. I just said that most of the time they are not used outside of statistical sciences. More often than not the null can be rejected outright or skipped entirely when the alternative hypothesis is suspected to be true at the outset of the experiment.

Then you obviously have no idea how much information can be held in such tiny things.

Perhaps a course on archeology would be in order.



Why is the Bible such a poor source for establishing the existence of persons?

It's entirely consistent with the literary style of the period, and while it's quite obvious that it doesn't prove the miraculous events, the fact is that this form of exaggeration was quite common in the time period. It was just as present in the historical documentation on Cesar.

Yes I do know that small fragments can lead to an amazing amount of information. But an entire civilization being confirmed as existing from a single bone fragment or passage in a book is beyond that scope.

The bible is a poor source for establishing people because it is often the only source. Especially in the case of jesus. Sure certain emperors or other people can be confirmed, but only because they are mentioned in other books, or paintings, or some other form of evidence.

Again, why?

What you are suggesting flies in the face of how how archeology deals with these kinds of things.

Exaggerations happen, which is why numbers are considered untrustworthy, and miracles are considered untrustworthy, and the like. But the existence of the person and that events that can be distorted to be the exaggerated event, that's not the issue. What the person actually did is always in question of course, but their reliability is still present.

Again, it might be an eye-opener for you to do a course on this, especially to understand why. That will explain why doubts of Jesus' existence are rarely taken seriously by critical historians, but by the same token, his miracles are not considered reliable.

Because archeology is a science and as such can't afford to suppose somebody exists from a single book, especially one written for the purpose of affirming religious faith.

Suppose 10,000 years from now some historians find a "The cat in the Hat" book. Or even something more credible such as the screenplay to "Spiderman 2"

And when most historians, who are not religious themselves, are asked about the existence of jesus, they often say they have no reason to suggest a man named jesus did not exist, but no reason to suggest that he did either.


I am wondering. Following all of the rules you are laying out here, what evidence would you offer one way or the other concerning the existence of god?

 

[yossarian22]

The concept of an omnipotent and onmnipresent god is self-defeating and impossible by today's scientific standards. No doubt Yossarian or some loony will counter my post by claiming that science fails by its own standards, but then fail to elaborate on a better system for understanding the world around us.

I don't need to show a better system.
I was making a reductio ad absurdum to dismember an argument.

Humans are visibly set apart from other animals. Evolution COULD very well be a process that God put in place for humans to have come about in a perfectly scientifically explainable way (while very complex).

It does not really matter what could have happened, as the notion that god guides evolution offers nothing to us.

The existence of the universe is an existential issue.

No, what proof do you have that does not beg the question, in other words, evidence that does not assume the universe exists?

I've been trying to do such a proof, but so far I haven't been able to make the jump from "I think therefore I am" to linguistic determinism.

Herm... Just off the top of my head (so don't expect something fully fleshed out)
1 The notion of space/time is an integral assumption made by our brains.
2 To challenge this notion is to challenge the validity of our thoughts as a whole.
3 We cannot coherently challenge the validity of our thoughts.
4 Therefore, the notion of space time should be considered correct.
P4 is enough to establish reason to believe a universe of sorts.
P2 is more than a little sketchy, and P1 is only slightly less so.

It is late and my thoughts are more than a little murky. Probably another problem in there somewhere.
Probably a better one out there as well.

Well something is containing all the matter and energy that exists.

Doh. You just begged the question.

Of course you can claim I have no proof any of that exists either. Probably tell me I am begging the question

It's like you are psychic or something

. Would the burden of proof not be on somebody who claims the universe does not exist?

Nope. Not much else to add to that. There is no evidence either way, so our default position should be disbelief. (this is where the demand for evidence comes to bite you in the ***)

I am wondering. Following all of the rules you are laying out here, what evidence would you offer one way or the other concerning the existence of god?

No reason to. Simple eh? Much better than that long winded pile of manure you were using to argue against a religion.

 

[blazedaces]

Vossarian.... I think you're having way too much fun with this...

-blazed

 

[Crimson King]

I really don't know what to think about that, but Itdoes verif my argument that intelligent design is one of the many evidences of God, but of course, that's no reason for you to believe, nor is it a reason that Bible says for you to believe.

Are you actually supporting that "Banana = Atheist's Nightmare" video?

It's so ridiculously stupid that I just assumed everyone knew it had to be a joke.