Define Evidence

[minkymurph]

Ok. But what are you asking.

1. Are you asking what an atheist means by “evidence”?

The statement is made from an atheistic point of view. Thus, when an atheist says, “there is no evidence God (or gods) exist.”, he means that he is not aware of any evidence for the existence of God.

What does the atheist mean by evidence?

When I was an atheist, I meant that I had no direct experience, physical, visual or aural, of the existence of a divine being. Evidence, for me as an atheist, and in the context of the first statement, means direct contact with God. Either by sight, sound or touch.

1. Or do you mean, what does a believer mean by evidence?

Both.

I intentionally left my question open ended to allow for discussion, but in doing so appear to have caused confusion.

To simplify -

What I am asking is what is evidence? We cannot discuss the credibility of evidence unless we first define what evidence actually is.

The next step is application of that evidence to the subject of inquiry.

If someone asked me ‘what is evidence’ my response would be; material evidence, documentation and oral testimony.

You raise a good point of discussion. Do atheists and believers agree on what constitutes evidence and if not, why not?

 

[minkymurph]

a. Most believers accept the testimonial evidence which is found in the Gospels. This evidence includes direct testimony of communication with God, eyewitness testimony of those who witnessed God’s intervention in this world and eyewitness testimony of those who produced miracles and attributed them to the power given them by God.

We could categorize the Gospels as documented evidence.

b. Many believers also have direct experience of the existence of God as they have either seen, felt or heard what they believe to be God.

Oral testimony.

c. Other believers have used logical arguments and deductions to determine that the universe and everything in it are evidence that God must exist because of the overwhelming complexity of creation.

I would say now we are onto application of evidence - what your saying here is the philosophical approach.

So our first points of discussion could be:

Are the Gospels evidence and evidence there is a God or gods?

I would say the Gospels can be categorized as documented evidence on the ground they are written accounts.

Playing Devil’s advocate I would say however they are not evidence there is a God - gods not relevant as not the subject of the Gospels. They are evidence people believed Jesus - among other things - existed, performed miracles, rose from the dead and was God Incarnate.

Where someone believes they have experienced God - oral testimony - should be believe them? If so why? If not - why not?

Is a philosophical interpretation of evidence credible and valuable?

 

[minkymurph]

If the intention is to find out what evidence would be acceptable for an atheist to believe in God, then you simply have to consider what evidence would be acceptable to you to believe in, for example, Vishnu.

I’m open minded - if anyone wants to present evidence Vishnu exists I’ll happily consider it with an open mind.

I personally wouldn’t be capable of it. I once read a book on Hinduism and got lost after the first chapter. I concluded one would have to live in that culture for a significant period of time to have any understanding of it, and even then in my case I would be seeing it through a western lens unique to my culture.

What led humankind to the conclusion god existed in the first place would be an interesting discussion.

 

[Bradski]

You raise a good point of discussion. Do atheists and believers agree on what constitutes evidence and if not, why not?

I can’t see that we’d have different definitions. It’s simply that you treat evidence for God as more credible than do I.

As for what evidence I would deem as being credible, then I think I’d need a bona fide miracle. Not someone’s interpretation of a mysterious event, but a personal, undeniable, completely unatural event.

It would also need to have been witnessed and verified by people that I trust to make sure I hadn’t imagined it.

 

[minkymurph]

I can’t see that we’d have different definitions. It’s simply that you treat evidence for God as more credible than do I.

As for what evidence I would deem as being credible, then I think I’d need a bona fide miracle. Not someone’s interpretation of a mysterious event, but a personal, undeniable, completely unatural event.

It would also need to have been witnessed and verified by people that I trust to make sure I hadn’t imagined it.

Well we can agree on what constitutes evidence.

I don’t think it can be said I personally treat evidence for God as more credible than you do. As a general rule I’m skeptical of many things that constitute evidence, and above all thing statistics.

I would deem my own personal experiences credible on the ground I personally had the experience. I know what happened and I was there, but such experiences serve as evidence to others only of what I believe happened and not what actually did.

On miracles - I see what I perceive as miracles every day. I think nature is miraculous - to think that inside the cell of every plant there are little factories converting sunlight into sugar as an example, spider’s webs, silk worms, bees and ants.

When I look up at a starry sky and see things like red harvest moons, I feel awestruck and think there is something greater than ourselves and there must be some purpose to life and in fact the whole universe. Of course it can be refuted this is evidence there is a God - but I think it can said it at least suggests there is something greater than ourselves.

I would also describe myself as ‘weird, wacky and wonderful’ and thus have a willingness to believe the unbelievable.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

The level of required evidence is directly proportional to the severity of the claim. In a Small Claims Court very little evidence is required, sometimes a simple testimonial or even a hearsay is accepted as sufficient. In more serious cases the bar is raised, simple hearsay evidence is not accepted. In the most serious cases the required evidence must be “beyond any reasonable doubt”.

How important is the claim of God’s existence? It would be more important than anything else - if it could be proven. As such one can and must demand an even higher level of evidence: “beyond any doubt whatsoever”. Something that even the staunchest skeptic cannot explain away. Something that could be denied only at the price that one must discard one’s own sanity. And we can deny pretty much anything, except our own sanity. Even the most mentally unbalanced person is convinced that he is “sane”.

But in this case there comes a problem. I have seen and created required evidence which could not be explained unless there is some “supernatural” entity, usually called “god” or “God”. And what happened? Instead of accepting that such evidence can be created, the “other side” immediately tried to argue that such evidence would make “faith” useless, it would us allow the “know” that God exists… which is of course true. But they went one step further, and argued that such knowledge would “rob” us our “free will” to believe or not believe in God. And as such God would never allow such evidence to be created.

Because God - for his inscrutable purposes - puts a higher value on the free will of the psychopaths and sociopaths then the bodily integrity of the victims of such psychopaths. The “free will” of the Nazis was more important than lives of the millions of Jews. The “free will” of Hutu-led government was more important than the life of the slaughtered Tutsi. The “free will” of a rapist must be “respected” over and above the gang-raped victims…

So it would be a child’s play to construct irrefutable evidence for God’s existence if only God would be willing to participate. Otherwise it is impossible. Historical “evidence”? Testimonials? Miracles? Well, maybe miracles would be sufficient, if they could be reliable. But the apologists have a “ready made” objection to that, too. “God is not a vending machine” - they say… and at the same time they submit millions of prayers asking for interventions to get a better paying job or finding their missing car keys. And when their request falls on deaf ears, they are ready with the cop-out: “it was not God’s will”. They like the game with the rule: “if it is heads, I win, if it is tails, you lose”.

 

[Bradski]

Well we can agree on what constitutes evidence.

I don’t think it can be said I personally treat evidence for God as more credible than you do. As a general rule I’m skeptical of many things that constitute evidence, and above all thing statistics.

I would deem my own personal experiences credible on the ground I personally had the experience. I know what happened and I was there, but such experiences serve as evidence to others only of what I believe happened and not what actually did.

On miracles - I see what I perceive as miracles every day. I think nature is miraculous - to think that inside the cell of every plant there are little factories converting sunlight into sugar as an example, spider’s webs, silk worms, bees and ants.

When I look up at a starry sky and see things like red harvest moons, I feel awestruck and think there is something greater than ourselves and there must be some purpose to life and in fact the whole universe. Of course it can be refuted this is evidence there is a God - but I think it can said it at least suggests there is something greater than ourselves.

I would also describe myself as ‘weird, wacky and wonderful’ and thus have a willingness to believe the unbelievable.

Isn’t it valid to suggest that had you been born in Delhi then your personal experiences would not have led to a belief in God. The Virgin Mary doesn’t seem to make many appearances in Bhutan or Yangon. And if that asteroid hadn’t hit, then God might well be envisaged as looking like a T Rex.

And nature would be miraculous if it wasn’t natural.

 

[minkymurph]

Isn’t it valid to suggest that had you been born in Delhi then your personal experiences would not have led to a belief in God. The Virgin Mary doesn’t seem to make many appearances in Bhutan or Yangon.

Yes - this principle applies to everyone

 

[St_Francis]

If the intention is to find out what evidence would be acceptable for an atheist to believe in God, then you simply have to consider what evidence would be acceptable to you to believe in, for example, Vishnu.

I think one of the problems is that so often we Christians skip from “evidence for a Creator” directly to “Thus the Triune God exists!” without realizing that to acknowledge the necessity of a Creator does not mean to acknowledge the Being Whom Christians call God.

When I first became a believer in a Creator, I did not immediately turn to Christianity. Instead, I considered various other, mostly New-Age types of beliefs, but none of them really stuck.

It took another level of evidence to take me to the Christian God, and then yet another to bring me to Catholicism.

So, I would say that the type of evidence you would need as an atheist to believe in a Creator is different from the type of evidence I would need as a Christian to believe in Vishnu.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

I think one of the problems is that so often we Christians skip from “evidence for a Creator” directly to “Thus the Triune God exists!” without realizing that to acknowledge the necessity of a Creator does not mean to acknowledge the Being Whom Christians call God.

When I first became a believer in a Creator, I did not immediately turn to Christianity. Instead, I considered various other, mostly New-Age types of beliefs, but none of them really stuck.

It took another level of evidence to take me to the Christian God, and then yet another to bring me to Catholicism.

So, I would say that the type of evidence you would need as an atheist to believe in a Creator is different from the type of evidence I would need as a Christian to believe in Vishnu.

I agree. Evidence for the existence of God is a necessary baseline, but insufficient on its own to justify any particular religious belief system, including Christianity.

To reach the conclusion that Christianity is true, one must first come to believe in the existence of God through whatever evidence is necessary to them on a personal level, followed then by coming to believe in the foundational groundwork of belief laid out in Judaism, and then finally coming to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and accepting what He and the Apostles have passed onto us regarding His life and His teachings.

The belief in a Creator does not by default yield a trinity, a virgin birth, a resurrection, etc… One can only come to understand and justify belief in them through a faithful exploration of the evidence that God has left for us.

The arc of salvation history laid out in the bible serves to explain and gradually reveal the relationship of the Creator and His creations and how he progressively and increasingly reveals the truth of who He is and what our purpose in life is.

 

[minkymurph]

I agree. Evidence for the existence of God is a necessary baseline, but insufficient on its own to justify any particular religious belief system, including Christianity.

To reach the conclusion that Christianity is true, one must first come to believe in the existence of God through whatever evidence is necessary to them on a personal level, followed then by coming to believe in the foundational groundwork of belief laid out in Judaism, and then finally coming to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and accepting what He and the Apostles have passed onto us regarding His life and His teachings.

The belief in a Creator does not by default yield a trinity, a virgin birth, a resurrection, etc… One can only come to understand and justify belief in them through a faithful exploration of the evidence that God has left for us.

The arc of salvation history laid out in the bible serves to explain and gradually reveal the relationship of the Creator and His creations and how he progressively and increasingly reveals the truth of who He is and what our purpose in life is.

True. Humankind believed in gods way before Christianity.

 

[Lion_IRC]

AveOTheotokos;14555432:

I agree. Evidence for the existence of God is a necessary baseline, but insufficient on its own to justify any particular religious belief system, including Christianity.

True. Humankind believed in gods way before Christianity.

You are both overlooking the historical evidence for The Resurrection.

Christianity is supported by much more evidence than any other religion.

Note also that the historical facts underpinning Christianity include evidence for God prior to the 1st Century AD. Its not like (the Christian) God was unheard of before Jesus.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

You are both overlooking the historical evidence for The Resurrection.

Christianity is supported by much more evidence than any other religion.

Note also that the historical facts underpinning Christianity include evidence for God prior to the 1st Century AD. Its not like (the Christian) God was unheard of before Jesus.

I did not overlook the evidence for the Resurrection, as I am not arguing against it’s historicity or it’s validity (I’m a proud Catholic ). In my post, I was simply stating that there is evidence used to argue for the existence of God that is not specific to Christianity (or any particular religion) and that a different form of evidence is needed to lead someone to believe in Christianity.

For example, imagine someone who does not believe there is a God examines some argument for God, such as “The Argument from Efficient Causality” and “The Argument from Contingency” I mentioned earlier, and decides that it is evidence enough for them to believe there is a God. While that evidence may provide for that individual the justification for their belief in God, it has not yet specifically led them to Christianity.

One may come to believe that an infinite cycle of contingencies cannot exist and therefore concluding there must be a first cause that is contingency free. They may then decide that this is God. That evidence on it’s own does not immediately justify belief in any particular religion, such as Christianity. To believe in Christianity would require other evidence to lead you to believe it is true, such as the historicity of the Resurrection.

 

[Bradski]

I think one of the problems is that so often we Christians skip from “evidence for a Creator” directly to “Thus the Triune God exists!” without realizing that to acknowledge the necessity of a Creator does not mean to acknowledge the Being Whom Christians call God.

When I first became a believer in a Creator, I did not immediately turn to Christianity. Instead, I considered various other, mostly New-Age types of beliefs, but none of them really stuck.

It took another level of evidence to take me to the Christian God, and then yet another to bring me to Catholicism.

So, I would say that the type of evidence you would need as an atheist to believe in a Creator is different from the type of evidence I would need as a Christian to believe in Vishnu.

I agree. We could both agree in a creator of some sort and then head off in totally different directions. I personally don’t think a creator is required. I am quite willing to accept that nature is…well, natural. And I’m quite willing to accept that we don’t know how it all started. But then, we are not built for holding concepts such as ‘something from nothing’ and eternity and infinite dimensions. Our minds have evolved to calculate the arc of a thrown rock and the speed of a predator.

As my avatar, the brilliant Feynman was reported to have said: ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don’t understand quantum mechanics’. Meaning that even the best of us are scratching the surface and the rest of us haven’t a clue. And this frustrates some people. There is an almost too human need to know. And some people suggest that they do. And their answer is a relatively simple and straightforward one that everyone can grasp: ‘God did it’.

Then we get religion and a trinity and virgin births and original sin and resurrections and eternal life and hell and damnation and the whole box and dice.

But you lost me on ‘God did it’.

 

[Bradski]

Yes - this principle applies to everyone

Then isn’t it impossible to determine whose experiences are valid if they are entirely geographically, and hence culturally, dependent?

 

[tonyrey]

I agree. We could both agree in a creator of some sort and then head off in totally different directions. I personally don’t think a creator is required. I am quite willing to accept that nature is…well, natural. And I’m quite willing to accept that we don’t know how it all started. But then, we are not built for holding concepts such as ‘something from nothing’ and eternity and infinite dimensions. Our minds have evolved to calculate the arc of a thrown rock and the speed of a predator.

As my avatar, the brilliant Feynman was reported to have said: ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don’t understand quantum mechanics’. Meaning that even the best of us are scratching the surface and the rest of us haven’t a clue. And this frustrates some people. There is an almost too human need to know. And some people suggest that they do. And their answer is a relatively simple and straightforward one that everyone can grasp: ‘God did it’.

Then we get religion and a trinity and virgin births and original sin and resurrections and eternal life and hell and damnation and the whole box and dice.

But you lost me on ‘God did it’.

“nature is…well, natural” is not an explanation but a dogma implying that “nature” (whatever that may be) is the ultimate reality…

 

[St_Francis]

I agree. We could both agree in a creator of some sort and then head off in totally different directions. I personally don’t think a creator is required. I am quite willing to accept that nature is…well, natural. And I’m quite willing to accept that we don’t know how it all started. But then, we are not built for holding concepts such as ‘something from nothing’ and eternity and infinite dimensions. Our minds have evolved to calculate the arc of a thrown rock and the speed of a predator.

As my avatar, the brilliant Feynman was reported to have said: ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don’t understand quantum mechanics’. Meaning that even the best of us are scratching the surface and the rest of us haven’t a clue. And this frustrates some people. There is an almost too human need to know. And some people suggest that they do. And their answer is a relatively simple and straightforward one that everyone can grasp: ‘God did it’.

Then we get religion and a trinity and virgin births and original sin and resurrections and eternal life and hell and damnation and the whole box and dice.

But you lost me on ‘God did it’.

Remember my first step was just that I believed in a Creator. That went on for 10 or more years.

What got me to “Someone did it,” was that the utter illogic of the evolution by purely random, material means of something as complex as a fly’s eye (which I had seen a program about the night before, even tho I usually avoided that sort of thing) just struck me like a ton of bricks. So it was not by thinking about a Creator, the last thing on my mind, it was from thinking about *science *that this insight came.

 

[tonyrey]

The level of required evidence is directly proportional to the severity of the claim. In a Small Claims Court very little evidence is required, sometimes a simple testimonial or even a hearsay is accepted as sufficient. In more serious cases the bar is raised, simple hearsay evidence is not accepted. In the most serious cases the required evidence must be “beyond any reasonable doubt”.

How important is the claim of God’s existence? It would be more important than anything else - if it could be proven. As such one can and must demand an even higher level of evidence: “beyond any doubt whatsoever”. Something that even the staunchest skeptic cannot explain away. Something that could be denied only at the price that one must discard one’s own sanity. And we can deny pretty much anything, except our own sanity. Even the most mentally unbalanced person is convinced that he is “sane”.

But in this case there comes a problem. I have seen and created required evidence which could not be explained unless there is some “supernatural” entity, usually called “god” or “God”. And what happened? Instead of accepting that such evidence can be created, the “other side” immediately tried to argue that such evidence would make “faith” useless, it would us allow the “know” that God exists… which is of course true. But they went one step further, and argued that such knowledge would “rob” us our “free will” to believe or not believe in God. And as such God would never allow such evidence to be created.

Because God - for his inscrutable purposes - puts a higher value on the free will of the psychopaths and sociopaths then the bodily integrity of the victims of such psychopaths. The “free will” of the Nazis was more important than lives of the millions of Jews. The “free will” of Hutu-led government was more important than the life of the slaughtered Tutsi. The “free will” of a rapist must be “respected” over and above the gang-raped victims…

So it would be a child’s play to construct irrefutable evidence for God’s existence if only God would be willing to participate. Otherwise it is impossible. Historical “evidence”? Testimonials? Miracles? Well, maybe miracles would be sufficient, if they could be reliable. But the apologists have a “ready made” objection to that, too. “God is not a vending machine” - they say… and at the same time they submit millions of prayers asking for interventions to get a better paying job or finding their missing car keys. And when their request falls on deaf ears, they are ready with the cop-out: “it was not God’s will”. They like the game with the rule: “if it is heads, I win, if it is tails, you lose”.

Your objection also applies to your rejection of God’s existence. Where is the irrefutable evidence that God doesn’t exist? What alternative explanation do you have to offer? It is certainly a cop-out - and unscientific - to maintain that no explanation is required. Any reasonable person believes life is valuable and should give an adequate reason for our existence…

 

[St_Francis]

I agree. We could both agree in a creator of some sort and then head off in totally different directions. I personally don’t think a creator is required. I am quite willing to accept that nature is…well, natural. And I’m quite willing to accept that we don’t know how it all started. But then, we are not built for holding concepts such as ‘something from nothing’ and eternity and infinite dimensions. Our minds have evolved to calculate the arc of a thrown rock and the speed of a predator.

As my avatar, the brilliant Feynman was reported to have said: ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don’t understand quantum mechanics’. Meaning that even the best of us are scratching the surface and the rest of us haven’t a clue. And this frustrates some people. There is an almost too human need to know. And some people suggest that they do. And their answer is a relatively simple and straightforward one that everyone can grasp: ‘God did it’.

“The God of the gaps,” I presume? What puzzles me when atheists mention that is that they miss completely that they have equal faith as we do in God in something for which they have no material evidence: that science will at some future point explain the gaps. They have faith that because science can explain X, Y, and Z today, that at some point science will be able to explain α, β, and γ.

Then we get religion and a trinity and virgin births and original sin and resurrections and eternal life and hell and damnation and the whole box and dice.

Yes, but this stuff is like trying to explain pre-calc to first-graders. If they can’t add and subtract, they are nowhere near being prepared for logarithms and cosines.

But you lost me on ‘God did it’.

 

[De_Maria]

Both.

Ok.

I intentionally left my question open ended to allow for discussion, but in doing so appear to have caused confusion.

Ok.

To simplify -

What I am asking is what is evidence? We cannot discuss the credibility of evidence unless we first define what evidence actually is.

We want to compare apples to apples.

The next step is application of that evidence to the subject of inquiry.

Except that “credibility:” is too subjective to permit one to standardize that which is acceptable evidence.

Some say, “I must see it to believe it.” Therefore, nullifying what which is accepted by all courts of law, “testimonial evidence of firsthand hand witnesses.”

If someone asked me ‘what is evidence’ my response would be; material evidence, documentation and oral testimony.

As would I. That’s why I accept the first hand testimonial eyewitness testimony of the Apostles and Disciples. But, that isn’t enough for atheists. They must be the first hand witnesses in order to believe what they see with their own eyes. And, since I was an atheist in my youth, I can assure that sometimes we don’t even believe our own eyes. Rather, we believe only that which we have been programmed to believe.

In fact, this is also true of believers.

You raise a good point of discussion. Do atheists and believers agree on what constitutes evidence and if not, why not?

In my opinion,“no.”

Why not? I can only speak for myself. As an atheist, I believed myself to be very intelligent and could not understand why anyone had a different opinion on this particular subject. I thought anyone who believed that God existed must be deluded or brainwashed. I had never seen God, therefore He didn’t exist.