What counts as evidence for God?

[Pikmin-ism42]

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing."

 

[AfungusAmongus]

source: Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

Right?

ohhh Douglas Adams!

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

source: Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

Right?

Not even close. C'mon, man, you should know this one.

 

[Dr. Slam]

Alright, I've thought a bit recently, and I realized that the last few Intellectual design debates (or even just religion-related in general) I've argued in have one major problem, in that what counts as evidence for God was never actually established. For example, me proving that there's only a 10^-50 chance of the universe being able to support intelligent life won't help if the atheists won't accept that as evidence for a Designer (aka: Infinitely many universes theory, etc.)

So, I figured that in order to better structure future debates on the topic, it would be beneficial to first hammer out the ground rules, in what counts as evidence, and what doesn't.

There are two related questions I'd like to ask here.

1): What would you count as satisfactory evidence for the existence of some God?

2): What would you count as satisfactory evidence for the existence of a specific God? (Like the God of the Bible, for instance.)

Just thought I'd pop in and give my two ¢.

I think one of the things you'd wanna prove is that we're living on a pretty young earth, around 6,000(?) years old. Tl;dr if we evolved over millions of years, the earth would be a lot older. I'd recommend you check out Ken Ham and google some stuff about carbon dating and the like. I actually from an old Apologetics class have some notes that I could post up, if anyone is interested.

As for the second thing you mentioned; at the end of the day, it's your choice to choose what you'll believe. I'd consider the Bible to be the most important piece of evidence you could use, and build off of that. (e.g. Noah's flood, grand canyon; Tower of Babel, different lnguages; etc.)

Stay healthy!

 

[Dr. Slam]

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing."

Wat

 

[Braydon]

Just thought I'd pop in and give my two ¢.

I think one of the things you'd wanna prove is that we're living on a pretty young earth, around 6,000(?) years old. Tl;dr if we evolved over millions of years, the earth would be a lot older. I'd recommend you check out Ken Ham and google some stuff about carbon dating and the like. I actually from an old Apologetics class have some notes that I could post up, if anyone is interested.

As for the second thing you mentioned; at the end of the day, it's your choice to choose what you'll believe. I'd consider the Bible to be the most important piece of evidence you could use, and build off of that. (e.g. Noah's flood, grand canyon; Tower of Babel, different lnguages; etc.)

Stay healthy!

Your 2¢ aren't worth 2¢ it's just a waste of 20 seconds of my life to read.

 

[Dr. Slam]

Your 2¢ aren't worth 2¢ it's just a waste of 20 seconds of my life to read.

Please explain.

 

[Braydon]

Please explain.

Try learning to read. There are 6 pages of reasons why.

But for a TL;DR you belong in an institution if you believe in new earth crap.

 

[Dr. Slam]

Try learning to read. There are 6 pages of reasons why.

But for a TL;DR you belong in an institution if you believe in new earth crap.

Like I said, just popped in to throw my 2¢. I'm not saying Christianity hand-down trumps everything with the evidence we have, but it's totally possible that there was an Intelligent Designer.

And what's up with your attitude?

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Just thought I'd pop in and give my two ¢.

I think one of the things you'd wanna prove is that we're living on a pretty young earth, around 6,000(?) years old.

You might want to prove that, because that's something that the Bible advocates, fairly clearly. You'd probably also want to prove that there was ever just one human man and one human woman, something which the Bible is also pretty clear about. You're probably also going to want to prove that there was a worldwide flood, because that's definitely in the Bible.

Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you. Your odds of proving any one of those things is about as good as your odds of proving that I am a 7-foot-tall, chiseled macho man with abs you could bounce marbles off of and two functioning penises. This is because all of the evidence we have indicates that none of these things happened or could have happened.

And of course, none of this, absolutely none of it, has anything to do with whether a god exists. You could prove that the earth is 6000 years old and you wouldn't be one step closer to proving the existence of a God.

Tl;dr if we evolved over millions of years, the earth would be a lot older. I'd recommend you check out Ken Ham

I recommend you check out almost anyone else. Ken Ham and his organization, Answers in Genesis, is to basic science as conquistadores were to the Aztecs - whatever cannot be thrown under the yoke must be destroyed. No, seriously:

What, then, should Christians think of science? Science has been hijacked by those with a materialistic worldview and exalted as the ultimate means of obtaining knowledge about the world. Proverbs tells us that the fear of God, not science, is the beginning of knowledge. In a biblical worldview, scientific observations are interpreted in light of the truth that is found in the Bible. If conclusions contradict the truth revealed in Scripture, the conclusions are rejected. The same thing happens in naturalistic science. Any conclusion that does not have a naturalistic explanation is rejected.

Or, to put it bluntly, if the Bible says one thing, and scientific observations conclude that what the Bible says is wrong, the conclusions must be rejected. This is insane. I'm sorry, but it just is. Rejecting reality in favor of what any text says means abandoning the only tools we have to examine the world around us.

The author, Roger Patterson, then tries to compare the methodological naturalism of science to this, and say, "See, it's just as bad!" Except it isn't. Rejecting what we can learn about reality simply because it does not conform to the bible is insanity, because there is no reason to trust these ancient writings over what we can discover ourselves. Rejecting supernatural explanations is necessary to explain reality, because virtually by definition, supernatural explanations cannot be tested, cannot be falsified, and have no explanatory power.

If we're investigating lightning, and you say, "Thor did it", then the reason we reject this is fairly simple: we know nothing about this "Thor" character, how he acts, or how he throws lightning around (aside from your assertions, which you have not demonstrated), so we have gained no new knowledge and no explanatory power; and we have no way of disproving the "Thor" hypothesis and therefore no way to tell if it were wrong, and thus no way of confirming it.

Methodological naturalism is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific endeavor because without it, we'd be forced to accept any supernatural claim, regardless of how useless or unproven, and we couldn't do science. Treating it as though it was some form of unfair bias is asinine. And this guy taught high-school biology?!

and google some stuff about carbon dating and the like.

Radiometric dating is concordant with multiple lines of data, from the geologic column to different aging methods leading to results in the same error margin to genetic drift. It is not only widely accepted as valid by virtually all geologists, paleontologists, archaeologists, and the like; it is used as an essential tool in each of those fields. It works, it's useful, and saying that it isn't merely displays your own ignorance of the science involved. I'm sorry, but you might as well be saying that antibiotics don't work - not only do they work, they're a staple tool in the scientific field they're involved in!

I actually from an old Apologetics class have some notes that I could post up, if anyone is interested.

If your apologetics class thinks Ken Ham is a worthwhile source, then I'll pass.

As for the second thing you mentioned; at the end of the day, it's your choice to choose what you'll believe. I'd consider the Bible to be the most important piece of evidence you could use, and build off of that. (e.g. Noah's flood, grand canyon; Tower of Babel, different lnguages; etc.)

Okay, first of all, do you know what canyons carved by floods look like? They tend to be braided (multiple interconnecting river channels, not just one), fairly shallow, fairly straight, and filled with coarse sediment such as gravel and boulders. Now, with that in mind, here's an aerial view of the Grand Canyon:

One single, unbraided riverbed that meanders, twists, and turns like crazy through the plateau. It looks nothing like any sort of flood-carved channel we've ever seen. This is the kind of thing that makes people not take people like Ken Ham seriously. Their arguments are so flawed that anyone could look them up and realize what bunk they are.

Tell you what, you find me an argument that isn't already debunked on TalkOrigin's "Index to creationist claims" and I'll try my best to address it. But this forum is populated largely by skeptics and science-minded people, and young-earth creationism is not rational. It's been rejected ad nauseum, and virtually every single claim brought up shows, at some level, one or more of the following:

1. A complete misunderstanding of what science is and how it works
2. A complete misunderstanding of what the available evidence is
3. A complete misunderstanding of what conclusions can be drawn from the evidence

This might be why Braydon went off at you. "Oh look, a YEC. I do not want to deal with this ****". He's a bit of a hothead, please excuse his rudeness.

Like I said, just popped in to throw my 2¢. I'm not saying Christianity hand-down trumps everything with the evidence we have, but it's totally possible that there was an Intelligent Designer.

Of course it's possible, because what you're presenting is an unfalsifiable, supernaturalistic explanation. Keyword there: unfalsifiable. There's literally no way to prove it wrong, which moves it firmly outside the realm of science. To coin a phrase, you're not only not right, you're not even wrong. Similarly, if there's an omnipotent god meddling with the universe, it's entirely possible that this god created the world 6000 years ago and made it in such a way that to any outside observer, it would appear to be billions of years old. But again, unfalsifiable concept, impossible to prove or disprove even in principle, not even wrong. Or, to put it another way: what you're proposing here is epistemologically bankrupt.

 

[Pikmin-ism42]

Wat

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

 

[Dr. Slam]

You might want to prove that, because that's something that the Bible advocates, fairly clearly. You'd probably also want to prove that there was ever just one human man and one human woman, something which the Bible is also pretty clear about. You're probably also going to want to prove that there was a worldwide flood, because that's definitely in the Bible.

Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you. Your odds of proving any one of those things is about as good as your odds of proving that I am a 7-foot-tall, chiseled macho man with abs you could bounce marbles off of and two functioning penises. This is because all of the evidence we have indicates that none of these things happened or could have happened.

Eh?

I recommend you check out almost anyone else. Ken Ham and his organization, Answers in Genesis, is to basic science as conquistadores were to the Aztecs - whatever cannot be thrown under the yoke must be destroyed. No, seriously:

Oh yeah, there are a lot of things that I don't agree with Ham about. I was only recommending him because I remembered hearing some things about ye olde fossil dating from a class like, what, two years ago? Sorry for the confusion.

Or, to put it bluntly, if the Bible says one thing, and scientific observations conclude that what the Bible says is wrong, the conclusions must be rejected. This is insane. I'm sorry, but it just is. Rejecting reality in favor of what any text says means abandoning the only tools we have to examine the world around us.

The author, Roger Patterson, then tries to compare the methodological naturalism of science to this, and say, "See, it's just as bad!" Except it isn't. Rejecting what we can learn about reality simply because it does not conform to the bible is insanity, because there is no reason to trust these ancient writings over what we can discover ourselves. Rejecting supernatural explanations is necessary to explain reality, because virtually by definition, supernatural explanations cannot be tested, cannot be falsified, and have no explanatory power.

Funny, I don't remember quoting Roger Patterson, nor AiG.

Methodological naturalism is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific endeavor because without it, we'd be forced to accept any supernatural claim, regardless of how useless or unproven, and we couldn't do science. Treating it as though it was some form of unfair bias is asinine. And this guy taught high-school biology?!

How do you define methodological naturalism? Being completely honest.

Radiometric dating is concordant with multiple lines of data, from the geologic column to different aging methods leading to results in the same error margin to genetic drift. It is not only widely accepted as valid by virtually all geologists, paleontologists, archaeologists, and the like; it is used as an essential tool in each of those fields. It works, it's useful, and saying that it isn't merely displays your own ignorance of the science involved. I'm sorry, but you might as well be saying that antibiotics don't work - not only do they work, they're a staple tool in the scientific field they're involved in!

Actually, I was referring to radiocarbon dating. And when did I ever say it didn't work?

Okay, first of all, do you know what canyons carved by floods look like?

Nope.

They tend to be braided (multiple interconnecting river channels, not just one), fairly shallow, fairly straight, and filled with coarse sediment such as gravel and boulders. Now, with that in mind, here's an aerial view of the Grand Canyon:

One single, unbraided riverbed that meanders, twists, and turns like crazy through the plateau. It looks nothing like any sort of flood-carved channel we've ever seen.

Looking at it from Genesis 7, the flood rain lasted for 40 days and night, and the water stayed there for 150 days. I dunno, have you ever seen a 190 (give or take a few days, since the whole earth probably wasn't flooded instantaneously) day flood?

This is the kind of thing that makes people not take people like Ken Ham seriously. Their arguments are so flawed that anyone could look them up and realize what bunk they are.

Once again, by no means do I necessarily represent Ham's or AiG's views.

Tell you what, you find me an argument that isn't already debunked on TalkOrigin's "Index to creationist claims" and I'll try my best to address it.

What makes TalkOrigin such a highly rated source? I mean, look at this:

The earth is fixed at (or near) the center of the universe. The sun and other planets travel around it. That is what the Bible plainly says (Ps. 93:1; Ps. 19:1-6; Josh. 10:12-14) and what the evidence indicates.

"The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved." ~Ps. 93:1

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." ~Ps. 19:1-6

"On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel:
“Sun, stand still over Gibeon,
and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”
So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!" Josh. 10:12-14

The only one I could even remotely see being close to this would be Joshua, and I don't really see how the sun and moon stopping in the sky from the author's perspective would indicate the earth being the center of the universe.

But this forum is populated largely by skeptics and science-minded people, and young-earth creationism is not rational. It's been rejected ad nauseum, and virtually every single claim brought up shows, at some level, one or more of the following:

1. A complete misunderstanding of what science is and how it works
2. A complete misunderstanding of what the available evidence is
3. A complete misunderstanding of what conclusions can be drawn from the evidence

Oh no, I understand. By no means am I going to force a YE perspective on you all. I can respect that.

This might be why Braydon went off at you. "Oh look, a YEC. I do not want to deal with this ****". He's a bit of a hothead, please excuse his rudeness.

No worries, I'm over it. I understand a lot of you Christians can be blind believers. I don't have all the answers, but I welcome any questions you might have.

Of course it's possible, because what you're presenting is an unfalsifiable, supernaturalistic explanation. Keyword there: unfalsifiable. There's literally no way to prove it wrong, which moves it firmly outside the realm of science. To coin a phrase, you're not only not right, you're not even wrong. Similarly, if there's an omnipotent god meddling with the universe, it's entirely possible that this god created the world 6000 years ago and made it in such a way that to any outside observer, it would appear to be billions of years old. But again, unfalsifiable concept, impossible to prove or disprove even in principle, not even wrong. Or, to put it another way: what you're proposing here is epistemologically bankrupt.

Interesting concept, never really thought of that.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Eh?

The point being that there's all sorts of things in the bible that can't be proven, because they're demonstrably false.

Oh yeah, there are a lot of things that I don't agree with Ham about. I was only recommending him because I remembered hearing some things about ye olde fossil dating from a class like, what, two years ago? Sorry for the confusion.

My apologies, it's just I felt the need to hammer in that Ham (and the association he runs, AiG) is not a valid or useful source when it comes to information on virtually anything to do with science.

How do you define methodological naturalism? Being completely honest.

Methodological naturalism is the practice in science of examining only natural causation. This is not to be confused with philosophical naturalism, which is, as far as I define it, the philosophical belief that things outside of nature do not exist - one is a practical standpoint needed to practice scientific inquiry; the latter is a philosophical belief position.

Actually, I was referring to radiocarbon dating. And when did I ever say it didn't work?

I assumed that from your post - if you're propping up Noah's Flood and the Grand Canyon, it would seem to imply you don't think radiometric dating works.

Looking at it from Genesis 7, the flood rain lasted for 40 days and night, and the water stayed there for 150 days. I dunno, have you ever seen a 190 (give or take a few days, since the whole earth probably wasn't flooded instantaneously) day flood?

I'm not exactly aware of that. But we do see floodplains, which flood regularly and are often underwater, and they also tend to look approximately nothing like the Grand Canyon. I'm curious - how do you think a flood, even one lasting 150 days, would carve out such a winding, deep canyon? After all, the water is supposedly coming from above; sooner or later the water at the bottom would start to settle and stop being particularly effective at carving. The landscape would start to resemble an ocean bed - flat, silty, and without much interesting stuff going on.

What makes TalkOrigin such a highly rated source?

Because it's basically a well-cited one-stop-shop for refuting creationist claims.

I mean, look at this:

"The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved." ~Ps. 93:1

The world cannot be moved, i.e. the world is fixed. If the Earth is fixed, how can it rotate around the sun?

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." ~Ps. 19:1-6

The sun goes from one end of the skies to the other, i.e. there are ends to the sky and the sun rotates around the earth.

Interesting concept, never really thought of that.

I'll admit straight-up that I am an... I don't know if this is a real term, but I'd describe myself as an epistemological naturalist. I don't believe that it is possible to know about anything outside of nature and thus that whether or not it exists, belief therein cannot be justified. And this is essentially the position that is held when talking about the philosophy underpinning science. We can't observe things outside nature. We can't attribute supernatural causality with any real justification (if I ask "what caused the start of the universe" and one person answers "Yahweh" and the other answers "Allah", we have absolutely no method of resolving that conflict). So the moment you start talking about supernatural explanations for something natural, you're drifting away from science and into something else, something I'm not particularly interested in.

 

[Sehnsucht]

Methodological naturalism is the practice in science of examining only natural causation. This is not to be confused with philosophical naturalism, which is, as far as I define it, the philosophical belief that things outside of nature do not exist - one is a practical standpoint needed to practice scientific inquiry; the latter is a philosophical belief position.

To expand briefly, science has to assume that the scientific method is a valid method of acquiring accurate information about our reality. Otherwise, there's no point in doing science. Hence, methodological naturalism.

Also, I prefer to use the term metaphysical naturalism over philosophical naturalism myself, since the former is more specific -- it denotes the view that the natural encompasses all layers of existence (the physical and metaphysical, hence the name). Philosophical naturalism, on the other hand, doesn't quite make that distinction immediately obvious. But it is a valid term nonetheless.

I'll admit straight-up that I am an... I don't know if this is a real term, but I'd describe myself as an epistemological naturalist. I don't believe that it is possible to know about anything outside of nature and thus that whether or not it exists, belief therein cannot be justified. And this is essentially the position that is held when talking about the philosophy underpinning science. We can't observe things outside nature. We can't attribute supernatural causality with any real justification (if I ask "what caused the start of the universe" and one person answers "Yahweh" and the other answers "Allah", we have absolutely no method of resolving that conflict). So the moment you start talking about supernatural explanations for something natural, you're drifting away from science and into something else, something I'm not particularly interested in.

To my knowledge, that isn't an existing term.

If you're stumped on terms, you could say that you are, simply, a naturalist -- though when prompted, clarify that you are not a metaphysical naturalist, because you don't hold that all existence is natural at the metaphysical level. You simply hold that you can't use naturalist methods to verify non-naturalistic things, and since those are the only sound methods available to us, believing there is a non-natural aspect to existence is not a warranted belief.

Just some brief tidbits on naturalism, for the benefit of yourself and others. Please do carry on. 8)

 

[Dr. Slam]

Hey! Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Haven't forgotten about this. I realized Wednesday night that I had a paper and a photography portfolio due Friday.

Don't procrastinate, kids.

The point being that there's all sorts of things in the bible that can't be proven, because they're demonstrably false.

Oh? Would you mind pointing those out to me? I'm genuinely curious; if there's something demonstrably false, I want to know.

My apologies, it's just I felt the need to hammer in that Ham (and the association he runs, AiG) is not a valid or useful source when it comes to information on virtually anything to do with science.

Understandable.

I assumed that from your post - if you're propping up Noah's Flood and the Grand Canyon, it would seem to imply you don't think radiometric dating works.

Yeah, I realize I was a little blindly-gun-ho on that. I honestly don't know if I can prove if the Canyon was formed by or during the flood, but I can't prove that it wasn't.
As before, I never said anything about radiocarbon dating.

I'm not exactly aware of that. But we do see floodplains, which flood regularly and are often underwater, and they also tend to look approximately nothing like the Grand Canyon. I'm curious - how do you think a flood, even one lasting 150 days, would carve out such a winding, deep canyon? After all, the water is supposedly coming from above; sooner or later the water at the bottom would start to settle and stop being particularly effective at carving. The landscape would start to resemble an ocean bed - flat, silty, and without much interesting stuff going on.

That thought actually came to me a few hours after I last responded to you. Maybe the water flow didn't simply stop flowing near the (now-sorta-ocean) floor? Considering it was supposed to be a flood that would wipe all human/animal life? Heck, maybe the flood didn't result in the Grand Canyon at all.

Because it's basically a well-cited one-stop-shop for refuting creationist claims.

Also very biased, but I guess I can understand.

The world cannot be moved, i.e. the world is fixed. If the Earth is fixed, how can it rotate around the sun?

Meant in a metaphorical sense, as in the world cannot be shaken from His grasp?

The sun goes from one end of the skies to the other, i.e. there are ends to the sky and the sun rotates around the earth.

If you look at it from the earth, the sun does go from one end of the skies to the other.

I'll admit straight-up that I am an... I don't know if this is a real term, but I'd describe myself as an epistemological naturalist. I don't believe that it is possible to know about anything outside of nature and thus that whether or not it exists, belief therein cannot be justified. And this is essentially the position that is held when talking about the philosophy underpinning science. We can't observe things outside nature. We can't attribute supernatural causality with any real justification (if I ask "what caused the start of the universe" and one person answers "Yahweh" and the other answers "Allah", we have absolutely no method of resolving that conflict).

And that's where the Bible comes in. I agree, I wouldn't just believe any random explanation that x[I/] equals y, but I've chosen to put my belief in the Bible and Christ's death on the cross. At the end of the day, I can't force you to believe, that's your choice.

So the moment you start talking about supernatural explanations for something natural, you're drifting away from science and into something else, something I'm not particularly interested in.

Hey man, you chose to come to this thread.

A thread that literally is about evidence that could point to God.

>mfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Oh? Would you mind pointing those out to me? I'm genuinely curious; if there's something demonstrably false, I want to know.

We can start with Noah's Flood. It didn't happen, and the list of ways we know that it didn't happen is fairly extensive.

Let's start with genetics. When populations almost die out, the genetic diversity within that population drops, and it takes a long time for this to recover. We can find genetic markers in animals; for example Northern Elephan Seals were hunted near to extinction, and the genetic diversity still has not recovered. We can track this in the genome of creatures. If every species had been reduced to two animals, we would see that. We don't. In fact, the idea of a species bouncing back from two individuals is simply fantastic, in the sense that it should literally never happen.

Geology. Floods, particularly long-lasting ones, leave clear markers in the geologic column. If the world had flooded, we would expect to see a band of dateable age throughout the entire column worldwide. We don't see anything remotely like that.

History. We know the flood didn't happen at the point in time described by literalists because societies existed both before and after the supposed flood.

Paleontology. The boat landed on Mount Ararat. Populations must have somehow moved from there to where they are extant now. Meaning we would expect to find some fossils of, say, Kangaroos moving across Asia. We can't find anything like this for any such species. Indeed, we only ever find fossils of such species in areas where we know they lived.

Oh, and on the subject: transportation. How, exactly, did a three-toed sloth get from point A to point B? They only live in the Amazon, and move really slowly. How'd they reach the Middle East?

Zoology. There are 35,000 species of spiders alone. 350,000 species of Beetle. 4,000 species of mammal. You cannot fit every extant animal species on a boat of the size described.

Physics. Where did the water come from; where did it go? Enough water to cover the tallest peaks is an insane amount of water, and it can't have just vanished.

Boatbuilding. A wooden boat of the size described in the bible could not possibly have held together. It would have collapsed under its own weight.

Honestly, the story doesn't even begin pass the sniff test. Every single scientific field that has the power to examine the evidence that should exist if the flood happened comes up with either nothing or evidence that contradicts the flood.

But okay, maybe that's a metaphor. How about Adam and Eve? Is that a metaphor? Because we know that's wrong too. We can track our genetics to find that there never was just one man and one woman. This is something essential to the theology of the new testament - something which cannot be thrown out.

And of course, you can peruse for yourself through numerous resources such as SAB for more. It has a great outline of every contradiction, falsehood, absurdity, and more in the book.

Yeah, I realize I was a little blindly-gun-ho on that. I honestly don't know if I can prove if the Canyon was formed by or during the flood, but I can't prove that it wasn't.

Yes, and I can. Because the flood never happened. And because we know how the Canyon was formed, and have a pretty good idea of when it happened (long before Homo Sapiens was a thing).

Meant in a metaphorical sense, as in the world cannot be shaken from His grasp?

If you look at it from the earth, the sun does go from one end of the skies to the other.

But now you're making excuses, and there's no reason that Talkorigin's interpretation is particularly wrong. There is quite a bit in the bible that implies that the earth is flat and unmoving and that the stars are painted on a firmament. Are these arguments particularly convincing? I dunno, I don't particularly care.

And that's where the Bible comes in. I agree, I wouldn't just believe any random explanation that x equals y, but I've chosen to put my belief in the Bible and Christ's death on the cross. At the end of the day, I can't force you to believe, that's your choice.

And I'd like to know why you believe that. If I believe something and someone else doesn't, I'd like to get to the bottom of why, and see if one of us can correct some misconceptions. If the Bible is accurate, I'd like to know!

Hey man, you chose to come to this thread.

A thread that literally is about evidence that could point to God.

And I'm saying that unless God manifests naturally, the problem of supernatural causation means that there is literally nothing that could even in theory count as evidence for God.

 

[Claire Diviner]

I've said this once before, but using the bible as a means to prove god's existence is akin to me using comic books to prove the existence of Superman.

 

[Sucumbio]

Meanwhile I just watched a fascinating documentary on the Church of Scientology. Talk about some serious ****, these folks are pretty much exactly what I find wrong with "religion" in the US. Not only should they be forcibly disbanded as a cult by the FBI task force, they at the very least should lose their tax exemption status. Then again I think all religions should have to pay taxes if their annual donation amount is greater than 12000, or 1000 a month, 250 a week, 15 dollars a day.

 

[Sehnsucht]

Meanwhile I just watched a fascinating documentary on the Church of Scientology. Talk about some serious ****, these folks are pretty much exactly what I find wrong with "religion" in the US. Not only should they be forcibly disbanded as a cult by the FBI task force, they at the very least should lose their tax exemption status. Then again I think all religions should have to pay taxes if their annual donation amount is greater than 12000, or 1000 a month, 250 a week, 15 dollars a day.

I watched that also. HBO's Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, for reference

The documentary chronicles the history and evolution of Scientology, and contains a lot of interviews and testimonies from former Church members who have come forward to share their experiences (all of which Scientology denies, of course). An interesting -- and rather disturbing -- picture, one that is certainly worth watching.

I have also read that apparently, HBO hired upwards of 250 lawyers or something, so as to comb the documentary during its production to ensure that only objective facts can be shown, such as data available on public record, or things known beyond possible doubt. And this, because Scientology (as the documentary covers) is notoriously litigious, hounding after whoever speaks ill of the Church, suing for defamation and other perceived offenses at the drop of a hat.

Talk about for we are many. >_>

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I have also read that apparently, HBO hired upwards of 250 lawyers or something, so as to comb the documentary during its production to ensure that only objective facts can be shown, such as data available on public record, or things known beyond possible doubt. And this, because Scientology (as the documentary covers) is notoriously litigious, hounding after whoever speaks ill of the Church, suing for defamation and other perceived offenses at the drop of a hat.

Talk about for we are many. >_>

It's actually even worse than that. Church doctrine is copyrighted, so any source discussing the beliefs of scientologists has to tread incredibly carefully, or risk getting their pants sued off by an organization lawyer-savvy enough to beat the IRS. The goddamn IRS. It's really quite ingenious, honestly - copyright your beliefs, so that anyone who wants to criticize them has to face your army of lawyers. Who cares if it's fair use? They don't.

 

[Claire Diviner]

It's actually even worse than that. Church doctrine is copyrighted, so any source discussing the beliefs of scientologists has to tread incredibly carefully, or risk getting their pants sued off by an organization lawyer-savvy enough to beat the IRS. The goddamn IRS. It's really quite ingenious, honestly - copyright your beliefs, so that anyone who wants to criticize them has to face your army of lawyers. Who cares if it's fair use? They don't.

Church doctrine is copyrighted, yet no one thought to tax them? That's asinine!

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Church doctrine is copyrighted, yet no one thought to tax them? That's asinine!

They tried. Turns out that being crazy and rich and having no sense of morals can get you places.

 

[Sehnsucht]

It's actually even worse than that. Church doctrine is copyrighted, so any source discussing the beliefs of scientologists has to tread incredibly carefully, or risk getting their pants sued off by an organization lawyer-savvy enough to beat the IRS. The goddamn IRS. It's really quite ingenious, honestly - copyright your beliefs, so that anyone who wants to criticize them has to face your army of lawyers. Who cares if it's fair use? They don't.

I hadn't made the connection. Of course if Dianetics is a copyrighted piece, then if it becomes Church canon, their beliefs would be copyrighted. I suppose it's only to be expected that the other materials would be copyrighted also (such as the infamous Xenu stuff).

Going Clear covered the whole IRS debacle. Miscavige organized a huge event to celebrate their victory. 'Twas quite the show.

 

[Sucumbio]

Yes and all L. Ron Hubbard's works were subsequently included into the fold as religious texts. Scientology is probably the best example of tax evasion. He even admitted on camera that his life ambition was to make a fortune and keep the IRS out of his pocket, so he invented the religious aspect to accomplish this. That's what's really scary, all you need to be is charismatic and gain followers and boon you're a church, you can rake it in.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

So coming back to the discussion had previously in the thread about the historical validity of the gospels (man, that was worlds ago), and the discussion of historical sources for the legitimacy of the Christian God in general, I think I feel justified at this point in saying that no historical document could possibly be considered convincing for the existence of a supernatural Jesus. Even if there was a clear, untampered historical account that described Jesus's many miracles, it would be, at best, just that: an account. A first-hand retelling of events.

Good evidence? Maybe.

But here's the thing - I can go talk to people alive today who will tell me about their experiences with alien abduction. I can sit down with them, and listen to them tell me their earnest, honest accounts of being abducted by aliens. I can ask my father and he can tell me his personal account of a "pillar of fire" experience he underwent while traveling through India. I could go downtown tomorrow and ask the local psychic, and they'll offer me a genuine, earnest first-hand witness retelling of their interaction with the souls of the dead.

But we don't believe these people. Despite the fact that being able to talk to them first-hand removes any ambiguity with translation, with potential forgeries or copying errors, or any similar issues that might come from the source being thousands of years old. Despite the fact that they are actually first-hand accounts, accounts by people who were there, rather than second-hand retellings by people born long after the fact. No, we don't take these people seriously because, at some level, we follow this famous maxim of Hume:

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

So why does this somehow fly out the window when the accounts are not first-hand, millenia old, in languages we don't speak, and potentially illegitimate?

 

[Xxaz_v]

Wait, I didn't read everything but, doesn't the bible count as evidence for God?

 

[Braydon]

Wait, I didn't read everything but, doesn't the bible count as evidence for God?

How exactly does a book saying there's a god prove there's a god?

 

[Xxaz_v]

How exactly does a book saying there's a god prove there's a god?

Well somebody had to write the first copy of the bible right? Whoever did had to find someway to believe God is real. I doubt that he or she just made it all up.

 

[Braydon]

Well somebody had to write the first copy of the bible right? Whoever did had to find someway to believe God is real. I doubt that he or she just made it all up.

The bible states that God is the one true god, the real god, in order for that to be true all the other gods have to be fake, imagined. If gods can be imagined, why couldn't the god in the bible have just been something someone imagined?

So no, the writers believing in god doesn't show that he's real.

 

[Pikmin-ism42]

Well somebody had to write the first copy of the bible right? Whoever did had to find someway to believe God is real. I doubt that he or she just made it all up.

But that doesn't necessarily prove the existence of a God. Whoever wrote the first copy of the Bible may possibly have based a lot of it off his own ideals and beliefs that just happened to pop up in his mind one fine morning and made a lot of sense to him. Then after Jesus happened, someone or some people probably added things to the Old Testament to make it fit with their new ideals.

I mean, the Greeks also must have had one person had to write the first tales of their gods and "had to find someway to believe their gods were real", yet nowadays, almost no one "doubts that they just made it all up" and absolutely no one points out "don't the Greek scriptures and carvings count as evidence for Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Athena, Mitt Romney, Apollo, and Dionysus?"

Plus, the idea of Gods/Ultimate beings/deities predates the Bible.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Well somebody had to write the first copy of the bible right? Whoever did had to find someway to believe God is real. I doubt that he or she just made it all up.

By this logic, do you also believe that the people who wrote the Qur'an had some reason to believe that Allah was real? How about the Jamestown cultists?

I don't think so. I think it's entirely possible for people, particularly prescientific people, to come to horribly unfounded conclusions. The fact that someone wrote the passages of the bible is not an indication that its content is true.

But even if your logic held water, well, I quoted Hume upthread:

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

What's more likely - that the laws of physics were violated, or that the people who wrote the bible were simply telling stories? I think it's the latter, personally. Whenever you use an argument for any sort of god, be careful that it doesn't apply to any given god. If it does, what you have is an argument that proves two directly contradictory positions (Yahweh and Allah cannot both exist), and thus an argument which is clearly flawed.

 

[Claire Diviner]

The bible states that God is the one true god, the real god, in order for that to be true all the other gods have to be fake, imagined. If gods can be imagined, why couldn't the god in the bible have just been something someone imagined?

So no, the writers believing in god doesn't show that he's real.

This pretty much sums up my rebuttal to anyone using the bible as proof of a god.

 

[JayTheUnseen]

I'd say that in a claim as large as the existence of a higher power, there will never be true evidence. There will be things that could be attributed to the theory of the deity's existence, but there will also be evidence that points to the contrary at the same time.

Here's the thing. Evidence for something like this will be biased depending on where you stand. Example: A man claims to have nearly died, and had a vision of Heaven, and his tale of what he saw coincides with the tellings of the Bible. A devout believer will say this points to proof of God's existence; but it isn't true proof. It could be a fake story. It could be the man merely dreamed of Heaven because he himself was a devout follower of Christianity.

I'm a Christian myself, but I'm capable of admitting that there is no hard proof that my beliefs are valid or well founded, and that there most likely will never be irrefutable proof until I die and see for myself what happens after death.


I will say this, though; what harm is there in believing in a higher power, so long as it makes you happier? If it keeps suicide and sad thoughts away, and helps you to look to the future and of a better time ( even if that time isn't until after you die, ) what harm is there in this?

Kindly don't bring the extremist theists into this; there will always be extremists in any group. I can bet you there are extremist atheists also.
So long as religion keeps you happy for personal reasons, why should anyone seek to change your mind?

 

[Sehnsucht]

I will say this, though; what harm is there in believing in a higher power, so long as it makes you happier? If it keeps suicide and sad thoughts away, and helps you to look to the future and of a better time ( even if that time isn't until after you die, ) what harm is there in this?

Kindly don't bring the extremist theists into this; there will always be extremists in any group. I can bet you there are extremist atheists also.
So long as religion keeps you happy for personal reasons, why should anyone seek to change your mind?

There is no issue in believing something to be true (or false). Problems arise when those beliefs influence one's actions in negative ways toward others. In that context, dissuading theistic outlooks is in the interest of the whole.

But if theistic beliefs don't incite negative or unethical actions, is it worth dissuading theists of their views? Not really. Though even if it doesn't have any immediate pragmatic consequence, we might as well seek to align our understanding with that which is true and accurate. In itself, it may not matter that you are a theist, but if I were to find your views to be incorrect in some way, and if I value having one's perspective be as accurate as possible, then I would have reason to engage with your worldview. Sure, a theist may find happiness/comfort/meaning/guidance in their worldview -- why not add (perceived) accuracy/relevance/etc. to the mix?

It's not necessary for me to do so. It'd be an icing on the cake scenario. But a glazed cake is often more delicious than one that isn't.

And, of course, the actual debate is in what worldview constitutes the most accurate and representative of reality. Which is, in large part, the topic of this thread.

 

[Pachinkosam]

I have a question about the famous people who mocked god as for example marilyn monroe or john lennon or singer cazuza also the captain from titanic saying not even god can sink this ship. They died for mocking god wiped them out for making fun of god.

 

[Braydon]

I have a question about the famous people who mocked god as for example marilyn monroe or john lennon or singer cazuza also the captain from titanic saying not even god can sink this ship. They died for mocking god wiped them out for making fun of god.

Such a loving god...

I've got news for you, if the thing you're worshiping kills anyone who doesn't believe in it, you're worshiping the devil.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I'm a Christian myself, but I'm capable of admitting that there is no hard proof that my beliefs are valid or well founded, and that there most likely will never be irrefutable proof until I die and see for myself what happens after death.

But if you acknowledge that there is no good reason for you to believe what you believe, why would you believe? It just seems silly to me that you know there's no good reason to believe what you believe, yet you go on believing in spite of that. If I believed something that I knew I didn't have a good reason to believe, I'd stop believing it, even if it gave me great comfort. That's because...

I will say this, though; what harm is there in believing in a higher power, so long as it makes you happier? If it keeps suicide and sad thoughts away, and helps you to look to the future and of a better time ( even if that time isn't until after you die, ) what harm is there in this?

...Thoughts don't live in a vacuum. When you accept the idea, "It's okay to believe things without any good reason to do so", it helps color your other beliefs, and poison your epistemology. Best-case scenario, you're being inconsistent; worst-case scenario, this belief taints every aspect of your understanding of reality and you end up with something along the lines of crank magnetism.

I have a question about the famous people who mocked god as for example marilyn monroe or john lennon or singer cazuza also the captain from titanic saying not even god can sink this ship. They died for mocking god wiped them out for making fun of god.

Matt Dillahunty's been mocking god for decades. So has Sam Harris. Dawkins has been at it for quite a while as well. So has Daniel Dennett. James Randi not only openly mocks god, but is a homosexual - doubly ripe for the smiting, and he's 86. Seems like your counting the hits and not counting the misses. What's more, because God is so intangible and works in such mysterious ways, anything can count as "killed by god". OD'd on heroin? God forced her hand on the needle. Shot by some dude? God convinced that dude to open fire. Hit an iceberg? God placed the iceberg. Died of a heart attack? God caused that heart attack. There's literally no way to ever establish that someone didn't die because of God's will.

Look, it's a numbers game. Everyone dies eventually, and given the number of people who are open and outspoken about their atheism, sometimes some of them will die not long after saying something about god. This sort of thing happens to believers as well - they die in untimely, unfortunate ways.

 

[Claire Diviner]

I have a question about the famous people who mocked god as for example marilyn monroe or john lennon or singer cazuza also the captain from titanic saying not even god can sink this ship. They died for mocking god wiped them out for making fun of god.

And many people of faith died during the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks. What's your point?

Also, that bit with the Titanic: Are you sure you're not quoting Billy Zane's character (Caledon Hockley) who said that same line ("God himself cannot sink this ship!") in the 1997 film, "Titanic"? Caledon was a fictional character in the film, unless you can provide an actual quote from Captain Edward John Smith himself.

 

[Pachinkosam]

And many people of faith died during the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks. What's your point?

Also, that bit with the Titanic: Are you sure you're not quoting Billy Zane's character (Caledon Hockley) who said that same line ("God himself cannot sink this ship!") in the 1997 film, "Titanic"? Caledon was a fictional character in the film, unless you can provide an actual quote from Captain Edward John Smith himself.

Oh im sorry what meant was employee for white star line said that quoted not even god himself can sink this.What does 911 and pearl harbor have to do with mocking god?

 

[Braydon]

What does 911 and pearl harbor have to do with mocking god?

Nothing, so why did he smite them.