Does God exist?

[MegaTherion]

There IS faith in science. You have to trust the scientists that proved the theories that became accepted as facts. You were’nt physically present and watched those scientists do their experiments or make those equations, so how do you know they did it properly? To trust in someone is to have faith in someone.

I want to address this first because MindOverMatter seems to agree with it.

The quote from Snerticus above is completely wrong. Faith is belief without evidence, and I don’t believe in the findings of scientists without evidence. There’s a lot of evidence for their findings and a lot of good reasons to accept their findings.

In the first place, I’m not merely trusting one single scientist’s interpretation of data – I’m putting my trust in the body of scientific knowledge generated by a community of scientists because 1) that body of knowledge is based on information that is available on demand to anybody who wants it and 2) that body of knowledge has proved itself to be reliable, useful, and accurate over the years.

Science is results based. Every practical result it generates is more evidence for trusting its methods and findings.

If I wanted to, I could personally investigate every piece of data gathered by scientists and study the conclusions for myself. I could repeat the experiments.

But practically, I don’t have the time to do that and, honestly, most of the findings are not immediately important to my day to day life.

So since no one person can master every piece of information ever, we have a body of peer-reviewed knowledge that we can trust because the scientists are all checking each other and making the information available to the public.

There’s nothing about science that involves belief without evidence. Nothing.

To try to argue that science requires as much faith as your religion (or any faith at all) is to totally misrepresent science in a vain attempt to convince yourself that science is just “another religion.” It might be comforting to you to believe that, but it’s wrong.

 

[Snerticus]

The quote from Snerticus above is completely wrong. Faith is belief without evidence, and I don’t believe in the findings of scientists without evidence.

Fine, if you want to define faith as belief without evidence, that’s your perogative. Just don’t expect others to believe your definition. But you still have faith in those scientists whether you want to admit it or not, or believe it or not.

If I wanted to, I could personally investigate every piece of data gathered by scientists and study the conclusions for myself. I could repeat the experiments.

In that case, I’d be willing to bet you’d disgree with some of the findings and lose faith in that scientist the next time he made a discovery. But then you’d probably say that there was no evidence to your satisfacton, anyway. (Assuming you could investigate every single piece of scientific data.)

There’s nothing about science that involves belief without evidence. Nothing.

So you keep trying to tell us. But the truth is only that you believe that statement, as your arguments are obviously not that convincing to others.

To try to argue that science requires as much faith as your religion (or any faith at all) is to totally misrepresent science in a vain attempt to convince yourself that science is just “another religion.” It might be comforting to you to believe that, but it’s wrong.

I never said my argument was that science requires as much faith as either my or any other religion. I merely stated that science requires faith. And it does. You haven’t proved to me that it doesn’t.

Since those that have no religion tend to make up for it elsewhere, yes, science can be an inadvertent religion to some. Usually it’s the ones that rely on proof of everything in order to believe something.

I don’t consider science a religion myself. I love some of the sciences, especially the natural ones. It probably would be comforting to think that science is just another religion, but it’s not. Even though some people let it affect them that way by defending it in religious discussions.

All you’ve done here is illustrated to us that you believe your own statements. But I suppose that’s how we appear to you to. C’est la vie.

 

[PJM]

=Snerticus;4785414]There’s no faith involved in saying “there is a God” either, because people lie all the time.

I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. <-Typing that required absolutely no faith on my part.

Me too, gonna have him for supper

There IS faith in science. You have to trust the scientists that proved the theories that became accepted as facts. You were’nt physically present and watched those scientists do their experiments or make those equations, so how do you know they did it properly? To trust in someone is to have faith in someone. If you didn’t trust the scientists that conducted those experiments in your statement above, you wouldn’t believe it was the best possible explanation, would you? You’d probably say “there’s GOT to be a better explanation than that.”, because at some point, your faith in those scientists was shaken.

Certainly science is usually valid and often beneficial. In order for scientist to conduct their studies, they use their Minds (spiritual),
their intellect (spiritual) and their wills also (spiritual.) They are also using their SOULS which too is spiritual, but often denined.

Isn’t it interesting that they accept and acknowledeg minds, intellect and wills, which they cannot quantify, but ignore the “motor” that runs them? The SOUL!

Friend, there is something that Created everything in the beggining and contunies to keep all of these things in exixtance. We call it, God

 

[MegaTherion]

I understand that MindOverMatter doesn’t want to talk anymore. That’s fine. I’ll refute his argument for those of you who are interested.

Here are his reasons for thinking that my “quantum state idea” is “logically impossible”:

1. First of all, you cannot prove the existence of an infinite number of something by science, since it is impossible to measure an infinite number of something. Therefore you are ultimately putting your faith in naturalism, based on a prejudiced toward supernatural explanation.

I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m posing a possibility. In addition, I’m not proposing a supernatural explanation. If a quantum state preceded the universe, it would be natural.

I’m proposing a natural possibility – you’re proposing a supernatural possibility. How do we decide between them? Well, since there has never been any evidence for anything supernatural, the advantage goes to the side that has evidence (i.e. natural stuff exists, quantum mechanics exists).

Now you claim my possibility is “impossible” because I can’t prove an “infinite number.” I don’t know what you mean by “infinite number” – I think you’re trying to say that time can’t be infinite (which is the essence of your point 3). And you’re right. But time only exists in the universe – that is, outside of the quantum state. Before there was a universe in its current expanding state, there was no time.
So time is finite. Fourteen billion years have passed since the Big Bang (or the latest Big Bang). Before that, there probably was no time – if my idea is right, there was only a quantum state in which there was no time.

You’re trying to say that the quantum state is “logically impossible,” yet we know very little about quantum states – and the little we do know appears to violate what we know about logic and causality. We actually have observed particles pop into existence from nothing on the quantum level, uncaused.

Here’s the point: we don’t have all the answers yet.

Because of that, it is ludicrous to think that a Magic Entity is the best possible explanation for the universe (particularly when the explanation may very well be natural).

1. Secondly; by presenting this argument you are basically saying that qualities such as love, fear, emotion, self awareness, cosmic order, and the laws of physical reality, ultimately have no explanation, since you refuse to transcend those realities.

I’m not sure what you mean by “ultimate explanation.” The laws of physical reality are not proscriptive “laws” – they’re descriptive, they describe the behavior of matter.

Matter always behaves the same way, There’s nothing about that fact that implies a god who decreed it to be so.

Similarly, you point to emotions and complicated thinking as evidence for a god. But those things are products of our brain activity, and our brains evolved slowly over time. Do we have the answers to everything about cognitive development? Of course not – but everything we’ve discovered indicates that cognitive activity is tied to brains, not the other way around.

I frankly don’t know what you mean when you say I “refuse to transcend those realities.” Why would I do that? What evidence is there to indicate that there is anything more than physical reality? Emotions are tied to brain activity as far as we can tell.

Your argument is boiling down to “I feel emotions. And since we don’t know every last thing about the universe, I’m going to decide that it’s most likely that a Magic Man made it so.”

I’m sorry – the fact that we don’t know everything doesn’t make every possible explanation equally likely. It certainly doesn’t make your god idea (or any god idea) any more likely to be true.

I have a feeling that you’re uncomfortable with there (likely) not being an “ultimate explanation” of the kind you’re looking for (which I imagine is an “all dogs [or good people] go to heaven” kind of explanation).

Truth doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to pick something as true because you like its conclusions. Of course it would be nice if there were an afterlife and an ultimate reward. But nothing indicates that.*

 

[MegaTherion]

Fine, if you want to define faith as belief without evidence, that’s your perogative. Just don’t expect others to believe your definition. But you still have faith in those scientists whether you want to admit it or not, or believe it or not.

Well, okay, I’ll bite – how are you defining faith?

It seems to me that a person either believes something because of evidence (independently verifiable, confirmable data) or chooses to believe without such data (for subjective reasons, or pure logic, or what not). [again, we’re talking about believing things in the objective world that exist for everybody – I’m not talking about subjective realities, like hopes, preferences, inclinations, etc.]

In that case, I’d be willing to bet you’d disgree with some of the findings and lose faith in that scientist the next time he made a discovery.

Well, that is actually how science works. Scientists are trying to prove each other wrong all the time. Whoever can disprove relativity and replace it with a better theory is going to get a nobel prize.

Science isn’t dogmatic. It’s changing all the time because we’re learning all the time.

All science allows us to do is to understand the best possible explanations at the given time based on the evidence available.

Scientists are encouraged to find problems in each other’s work. That’s precisely what makes science so reliable (and why it does not require faith).

[incidentally, I wouldn’t “lose faith” in “that scientist” – we’re not talking about individual opinions; we’re talking about ideas that have been accepted by the entire scientific community after peer-review. Of course there are some individual nutjob scientists who have goofy ideas – but until their ideas pass peer-review, they’re just nutjobs who have their own peculiar thoughts]

To whoever said that they’re eating pasta tonight, that is actually how Our Flying Spaghetti Monster prefers to be worshipped. Praised be his noodly appendage, RAmen.

PJM:

Certainly science is usually valid and often beneficial. In order for scientist to conduct their studies, they use their Minds (spiritual),
their intellect (spiritual) and their wills also (spiritual.) They are also using their SOULS which too is spiritual, but often denined.

Isn’t it interesting that they accept and acknowledeg minds, intellect and wills, which they cannot quantify, but ignore the “motor” that runs them? The SOUL!

The mind is not spiritual. It’s non-physical, but it is tied to physical substance (the activity of the brain).

What evidence do you have that a soul exists? Please don’t say “emotion.”

 

[PJM]

=MegaTherion;4788211]

The mind is not spiritual. It’s non-physical, but it is tied to physical substance (the activity of the brain).

What evidence do you have that a soul exists? Please don’t say “emotion.”

So help me out here friend.

The mind being “non-physical” means exactly what:shrug:

You can’t see it, smell it, touch it, or quantify it, nor can you prove that your 'mind" is bigger, greater, better or worse than my mind. Yet you can call it into play, at will, so we can know that it is there.

Your free to call it what ever you wish, but most of us, applying common logic will tell you that the mind is Spiritual! Seems to me your working very hard to avoid the obvious, unless of course you can provide a better definiation and evidence of “non-physical” being something other than SPIRITUAL?"

And just how is it “tied” to the brain. One is material, the other is spiritual!

Still, it was a GOOD TRY:clapping: :tiphat:

 

[PJM]

=MegaTherion;4788211]Well, okay, I’ll bite – how are you defining faith?

How do you define a Miracle?

God is my friend, I wonder why? here’s a hint, God Is Truth!

All science allows us to do is to understand the best possible explanations at the given time based on the evidence available

.

While God allows us to KNOW His Truth, which is the TRUTH!

Scientists are encouraged to find problems in each other’s work. That’s precisely what makes science so reliable (and why it does not require faith).

And we are incouraged on the one hand to try to disprove God’s truth, which alway’s leads to proving God’s truth, if done objectively and with open minds and hearts.

To whoever said that they’re eating pasta tonight, that is actually how Our Flying Spaghetti Monster prefers to be worshipped. Praised be his noodly appendage, RAmen.

It was me!

The mind is not spiritual. It’s non-physical, but it is tied to physical substance (the activity of the brain).

**I replied to the above in a sperate post:thumbsup: **

What evidence do you have that a soul exists? Please don’t say “emotion.”

If your serious, as the OP of this string, I both know and have shared the answer. Page #4, post numbers # 50 and # 52.

I look forward to your views on what I have already proven

Love and prayers my friend!

 

[MegaTherion]

So help me out here friend.

The mind being “non-physical” means exactly what:shrug:

That it’s not tangible.

You can’t see it, smell it, touch it, or quantify it, nor can you prove that your 'mind" is bigger, greater, better or worse than my mind. Yet you can call it into play, at will, so we can know that it is there.

Most of that is true. You can actually prove that one mind is better than another (or at least the quality of its thoughts). But you’re right – minds don’t have spatial properties.

unless of course you can provide a better definiation and evidence of “non-physical” being something other than SPIRITUAL?"

My understanding is that most people use the word spiritual to mean something non-physical that is independent of material.

The mind is not independent of the brain. There’s quite a lot of evidence to show us that what we call mind emerges from the physical activity of the brain.

And just how is it “tied” to the brain. One is material, the other is spiritual!

One is physical and one is non-physical. But each of our (non-physical) thoughts is the result of neurons/synpases firing in the (physical) brain. We’ve demonstrated that by doing things to the (physical) brain, we can cause changes in the (non-physical) mind. For example, by applying a mild electrical current to certain parts of the brain, we can trigger memories, thoughts, recollections, emotions, and even stimulate what people refer to as “spiritual” experiences.

Now it is possible, I suppose, that the mind is independent of the brain – but nothing we have ever discovered supports that idea. And everything we have ever discovered about cognitive functions leads us to the opposite conclusion: that “mind” is our word for brain activity. The mind is simply an emergent property of the brain.

If you have any evidence to demonstrate that the mind is actually independent of the brain, you will have a nobel prize waiting for you.

Oh, and enjoy your pasta – the FSM approves! Praise the divine noodles!

 

[MegaTherion]

1. How can we know that the Human Soul exist?
2. The Human Soul Generates Ideas, one cannot separate “An Idea!”
3. “Ideas” have “No Parts”, and thus are ‘SPIRITUAL”, proving the existence of our soul.
4. Where do “ideas” originate? In our soul!

So you’re trying to prove that a soul exists. Line 5 asserts that the soul generates ideas – right there, you’re assuming the conclusion in a premise. It’s a circular agument (or at least it’s phrased in a circular way).

Line 7 just repeats the idea of line 5.

So the only “argument” is contained in line 6: Since ideas have “no parts,” a soul must exist. (I assume you will agree that that is a fair paraphrase of the line)

In the first place, I don’t agree that ideas have no “parts.” An idea, insofar as it is a thought, has a physical component (the brain activity that results in the thought). So an idea is at least partly physical. [Further, depending on what you mean by “parts,” I can show that “ideas” are put together from sensory data and other ideas, so that that they do have mental components]

But even if I grant that ideas have no parts, how does that in any way demonstrate that a soul exists?

And even if I grant that a soul exists, how does that in any way demonstrate that the soul is immortal?

Of course, I don’t grant either of those things – your argument makes no sense.

 

[PJM]

So you’re trying to prove that a soul exists. Line 5 asserts that the soul generates ideas – right there, you’re assuming the conclusion in a premise. It’s a circular agument (or at least it’s phrased in a circular way).

Line 7 just repeats the idea of line 5.

So the only “argument” is contained in line 6: Since ideas have “no parts,” a soul must exist. (I assume you will agree that that is a fair paraphrase of the line)

In the first place, I don’t agree that ideas have no “parts.” An idea, insofar as it is a thought, has a physical component (the brain activity that results in the thought). So an idea is at least partly physical. [Further, depending on what you mean by “parts,” I can show that “ideas” are put together from sensory data and other ideas, so that that they do have mental components]

But even if I grant that ideas have no parts, how does that in any way demonstrate that a soul exists?

And even if I grant that a soul exists, how does that in any way demonstrate that the soul is immortal?

Of course, I don’t grant either of those things – your argument makes no sense.

My dear friend in Christ,

We are now offically in a circular argument

I am perfectly happy and satisfied to allow the God you deny, be the final arbitrator.

Only one of us can be right!

Are you THAT sure of your position? I am:shrug:

 

[Snerticus]

Well, okay, I’ll bite – how are you defining faith?

Well, before I posted, I looked up the definition of faith on dictionary.com just to be sure that what you believed was the real definition. Of course, there was a myriad of definitions but one was close to your definition. Others weren’t so cut and dry. So I guess it’s a matter of which one each of us believes.

Second, I believe in evolution. Many christians don’t but I do. It is a scientific theory that to me has evidence enough that the creatures on earth evolved. It is not proven in the sense it’s definitive, but there is enough proof for *me *that it’s correct. I have faith in Darwin because I’m pretty sure he knows more than I do about natural selection. When you agree with a scientific process, you have faith that those scientists are competent in what they do. Even if all the scientist in the world agreed to a concrete assertion with every scrap of evidence pointing to their conclusion, you have faith that all of them know what they’re doing. You have faith that you yourself are correctly interpreting the data. You might not consider this as faith, but only as mere fact; but I see it as faith. You don’t have the proof they’re competent, yet you believe their results because the proof convinces you. It might not convince someone else. Thus another person years later might refute their conclusion to start his own study, because his faith in those scientists were shaken for some reason unbeknownst to us.

What you call “no faith” and fact, I call faith. We can’t be 100% sure of anything, really. It’s all in our perception and what we accept as evidence. When someone carbon dates something, I have faith that they know what they’re doing. I have no idea how one carbon dates something, but I know the basic theory behind it and I have faith that those scientists are competent enough to carbon date an artifact properly. The evidence means nothing to me, other than the artifact looks old. I call that faith. You may not.

So pretty much we are proving to each other yet again that we believe our own statements. That will eternally get us nowhere. If somehow faith just popped into your system, you’d understand that there’s more to mere proof and evidence. But until you have faith you’re going to be stuck in the “I don’t believe anything unless it’s proven” syndrome. Which is just as bad as “I don’t believe anything if it’s not in the Bible” syndrome. There are things that just can’t be proven to everyone’s satisfaction and there are things that the Bible doesn’t explain yet obviously happen. In either situation, the lack of compromise may cause one not to see the obvious.

 

[cerad]

That’s a joke, right? Yeah, I get it!

I’ve never seen such fakery with a TV evangelist (or whatever he’s called) in my life. Too bad you couldn’t see Padre in action, as you’re just judging on your beliefs, which I guess is enough for you. At least I’ve seen the Hinn in action. Not pretty. Not real either. What a self-centered man.

MoM with a few edits:

When you say discredited, i doubt that it is based on anything more then a naturalistic prejudice, since many were converted on the account of meeting with Benny and seeing the hair for themselves. So unless there all liars including the hardcore communist, it would seem that Benny Hinn is a subject that should be taken seriously. It is true that some did try to discredit him, but there were those who also supported him and verified his hair. Its hardly surprising that people would try to discredit him; even jealous priests hated him and spread false hoods that were later exposed as lies.

Its sad that you appear to have fogged him off with out even attempting to justify your claim. Where is the evidence that discredits Benny? All you have done is made the assertion that he is a trickster. You have merely given the illusion that you know what you are talking about.

Stigmata is trivial to fake but there is simply no way Hinn’s hair could be anything but supernatural.

 

[MindOverMatter]

Stigmata is trivial to fake but there is simply no way Hinn’s hair could be anything but supernatural.

This response is a straw man and a caricature of my argument; because it does not take into consideration the nature of the miracles that were happening to Padre Pio and those around him. I can bet you that there is simply no logical comparison between Hinn and padre concerning the nature of the so called miracles concerned. I am not dumb. I am well aware that people can perform amazing trickery and illusions. My argument was that mere trickery cannot be reasonably applied to Padre’s case. You have to be a hardcore naturalist by principle and ignorant of the events surrounding Padre, not to be moved spiritually. Skepticism is fine when it is grounded in intellectual and honest intentions. If your intentions were honest you would not compare Padre to Hinn. You would judge Padre on his own merits

But to you, every miracle is a fake. I do not personally know Hinn. But to say that all miracles are fake is ridiculous. Holes in your hands because of a devotion to Jesus Christ, is not trivial. Agonizing bleeding wounds in the sides and feet, without one bleeding to death, is not trivial. The fact that doctors have verified the wounds and the fact that some have even been forced by their naturalistic beliefs to come up with absurd and amazingly impossible stories to account for what was obviously is not natural, is not trivial. Miracles such as people regaining sight and deformed babies becoming whole again because of padre pios supernatural presence and prayers, is not trivial. You simply have this arrogant idea that religious people are either frauds or insane because thats the popular mentality. But just because some people might be gullible enough to be converted by a hair trick (if it is a trick), does not mean that all miracles are therefore frauds. If you accuse Padre Pio of being a fraud then you must provide good reasons for doing so. Comparing him to “Hinn” is not enough. To me, how i judge a miracle is by how unlikely they are to be an illusion or a natural event. The more improbable something is, the more likely it is to be a miraculous intervention. I included the hardcore communist, because she (if i remember correctly) was especially critical of Christianity and the supernatural. She would have not been easily converted by a trick.

If you doubt Padre Pio thats fine; but if you’re an honest intellectual (which are probably not), you will have to judge each miracle by its own merits rather then comparing two people and drawing straw-man conclusion.

 

[agangbern]

To convince me that the legends are true, you would need something along the lines of:

1. contemporary eyewitness accounts of the supposed miracles (not anonymous accounts written decades later), 2) contemporary writings about this preacher (it would help if not all of them were flattering, since real people usually do acquire enemies and such), 3) Contemporary accounts of some of the unbelievable things in the New Testament, such as dead bodies rising and walking in the city to appear “unto many” (Matthew 27:45-53) [That certainly seems like something that would have been recorded by a source outside of the Bible if it actually happened], 4) Documents written by Jesus himself.

Any of those things would lend at least some credibility to the New Testament account.

1. You mean an account today by one who witnessed by himself the miracles performed by Jesus? It would mean that that individual must be already more than 2,000 years old now. If such individual should come to you, do you think you would honestly still believe him? What would you need in order to believe him?
2. There are a lot of contemporary writings about this man, and not all of them are flattering. The Da Vinci Code is just one of them.
3. Accounts to be made today by someone who saw the dead rise? That would also mean the narrator must be already more than 2,000 years old. My questions to you in number one above would apply to this. So then, please answer them.
4. Have you read, for example, an authentic document written by Christopher Columbus? How about a document written by your great great grandfather of more than 2,000 years ago, do you have one?

Let’s deal with this objectively without making personal judgment to each other.

 

[FightingFat]

On a more theological note; in the parables Jesus wants to show us how something we have hitherto not perceived can be glimpsed via a reality that does fall within our range of experience. In this way Jesus leads us to the mystery of God—to the light that our eyes cannot bear and that we therefore try to escape. In order to make this accessible to us, He shows how the divine light shines through in the things of this world and in the realities of our everyday life. Through everyday events, He wants to show us the real ground of all things and thus the true direction we have to take in our day to day lives if we want to go the right way. He shows us God: not in an abstract God, but the God who acts, who intervenes in our lives, and wants to take us by the hand.

Can we reject the reality of this God? There are a thousand rational objections—not only in Jesus time, but throughout all generations and today maybe more than ever. For we have developed a concept of reality that excludes reality’s translucence to God. The only thing that counts as real is what can be experimentally proven. In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) the rich man dies and in knowledge of what awaits his family cries out for more evidence of revelation to be sent to his family. The highest truths cannot be forced into the type of empirical evidence that only applies to material reality. If a miracle were indeed provided as the rich man requests, there is still every possibility that it will simply lead to a hardening of hearts as evidenced in John 11:45-53.

God cannot be constrained into experimentation and thus we are free to reject the parables’ message. This means, though, that the parables are ultimately an expression of God’s hiddenness in this world and of the fact that knowledge of God always lays claim to the whole person—that such a knowledge is one with life itself. Knowledge of God only comes through the gift of God’s love becoming visible to you—but this gift too has to be accepted.

God’s sign for men is the Son of Man; it is Jesus himself. And at the deepest level, he is this sign in his Paschal Mystery, in the mystery of His death and resurrection.

 

[rinnie]

IMO to prove to someone that God exists is impossible. I have learned this in my last year on this site.

If I could take my soul and put it inside of a person that would be the only way. And quite simple, it would be magic they would know a faith that is so great and wonderful that nothing in this world would matter.

But In order to come to know God you must want this. You have to go to God and ask him to show you the way. The only way that I myself can show people that I know God exists is the way I live my Life.

Don’t get me wrong, not by the way I live because there will be times I can let God down. Its how I can not let the things of this world take over me any longer. If the stock market plunges oh well, Because if God wants it can triple the next day.

The only way you can know that God exists is if you know someone with a Faith that is unreal. A faith they practice by their actions is the only way. Its automatic for them.

How I learned was I no longer care about anything. If bad happens it happens. I will find a way to get through it, God will guide me. I know that I have no control, never have, never will. But God does always has always will. The feeling of God has got to come from Grace. And you have to want that Grace. And you cannot go to God and ask for it and fool him. He knows if you are serious or not. If you are, you are cool. And that grace will come and grow and grow and grow. But you cannot give it to anyone or show them. It won’t work. We do not have that kind of power.

 

[MindOverMatter]

IMO to prove to someone that God exists is impossible. I have learned this in my last year on this site.

Thats because it was never a matter of proof in the first place; but rather a matter of desire. Most atheists convert because they realize that belief in God is practical to their needs and wants. And most people disbelieve in God because God is a fret to their desires and wants.

For the most part it is as simple as that. Some people would rather believe that the world exists for no other reason then cause and effect. They do not want the world to be a miracle if that means undermining their personal authority and glory. Naturalism is more a fashion then a intellectual position. They might use arguments to support their position, but when it comes down to the raw root of the matter, it is mostly about desire. Notice that most arguments are based on the principle of empiricism. Most of the arguments are about avoiding the evidence for God. So next time you debate someone, know that you at war with their desire, not just their intellect.

 

[rinnie]

Thats because it was never a matter of proof in the first place; but rather a matter of desire. Most atheists convert because they realize that belief in God is practical to their needs and wants. And most people disbelieve in God because God is a fret to their desires and wants.

For the most part it is as simple as that. Some people would rather believe that the world exists for no other reason then cause and effect. They do not want the world to be a miracle if that means undermining their personal authority and glory. Naturalism is more a fashion then a intellectual position. They might use arguments to support their position, but when it comes down to the raw root of the matter, it is mostly about desire. Notice that most arguments are based on the principle of empiricism. Most of the arguments are about avoiding the evidence for God. So next time you debate someone, know that you at war with their desire, not just their intellect.

There is alot of truth in what you say. If people could just see all they need to pray for is one thing and one thing only. Grace. Once you receive Grace from God you have nothing else to pray for. You are happy. You know you are where GOD wants you, thats why you are happy. And you know if he sees fit for you to be in another place thats okay too.

But you start to want what you have instead of have what you don’t want. Or you think you want. You come to realize that there is nothing God can give you that could possibly make you any more happy.

 

[MegaTherion]

Only one of us can be right!

I agree.

Snerticus:

What you call “no faith” and fact, I call faith.

Well, I agree that we probably can’t prove anything to 100% degree certainty, but I’m talking not talking about 100% certainty when I say “facts.”

In science, we accept ideas as true when there is sufficient evidence to compel us to accept them. There’s no claim that our facts are absolutely, 100% correct. Our facts are as close to reality as we can know based on the best evidence available at the time.

“Faith,” as I’m defining it, applies only to ideas accepted without sufficient evidence to compel belief.

The example you’ve picked is evolution – which is kind of funny, since there is more evidence for evolution than almost any other scientific theory (including gravity).

Nobody who actually knows anything about the subject has (or needs to have) “faith” in Darwin. That notion is very silly. The evidence is clear as day: the fossil record alone would be sufficient, but we also have comparative biology and overwhelming DNA evidence (which, when we discovered it, happened to confirm everything that evolution predicted). On top of that, evolution makes predictions that have been confirmed and proven useful across a wide variety of other sciences.

If we found out tomorrow that Darwin had just fabricated The Origin of the Species to mock scientists, it wouldn’t make a shred of difference – all of the data we’ve compiled since Darwin lived overwhelmingly points to evolution. “Faith” in Darwin (of all people!) has nothing to do with accepting evolution.

Similarly, when we date rocks, we use lots and lots of methods of dating in order to check methods against each other – we accept them only when we consistently get results that point to the same approximate times.

Do we know all of this 100% for sure? No, of course not. There’s still a lot more to learn. But just because we probably can’t know everything 100% for sure doesn’t mean that we can’t know anything at all about reality – just because there are some limits to our knowledge doesn’t mean that every argument is equally valid.

Arguments with lots and lots of evidence are very likely to be true; it doesn’t take faith to accept them. Arguments without evidence (taken on faith) might be true or false – but we have no way of confirming their veracity or distinguishing such beliefs from fantasy.

So, in short, it’s not an “act of faith” to accept evolution, even if we’re only 99% sure. Some new evidence could change the way we think about evolution tomorrow – but we would have to adjust to new evidence. There would be nothing that would require us to have “faith.”

On the other hand, it is an act of faith to believe in something like a god or spirits or the thousands of other supernatural things people have believed in since the dawn of time.

You have to be careful – apologists like to play games with words. They’ll convince you that “everything takes faith, even science” so that all of a sudden, all beliefs become equally likely to be true. Or, as MindOverMatter did, they’ll try to convince you that atheists “want” there to be no god and that’s the one and only reason that they’re atheists.

For the record, I personally am quite happy there’s no god, but I know other atheists who wish they could believe. Some of these people were at one time believers, and they are disappointed that there is no evidence at all for the existence of god.

agangbern:

1. Have you read, for example, an authentic document written by Christopher Columbus? How about a document written by your great great grandfather of more than 2,000 years ago, do you have one?

Let’s deal with this objectively without making personal judgment to each other.

Hi, agangbern,

You’ve misunderstood – I mean “contemporary” in the sense of “contemporary with Jesus.” In other words, I’m looking for eyewitness accounts that were from that same time period – an account that dates from 1-33 CE, rather than the 65-110 CE period in which the synoptic gospels were written. Or accounts of people from around 1-33 CE writing about Jesus and his miracles.

The thing is, the accounts themselves have to be from that time period – they can’t be accounts claiming to be about that time period.

Let me quickly address the point I quoted from you above (your only point that didn’t rely on a misunderstanding of my use of “contemporary”). You hear this kind of argument a lot from apologists, and it’s related to the argument Snerticus was presenting above. “Well,” they say, “we can’t know everything 100% about history, and it’s all faith anyway, so we can say whatever we like about it.”

It’s a total and complete misunderstanding of history. History is based on the best evidence available to us.

There’s a ton of evidence that Christopher Columbus existed. We do have his writings (journals and such), we have records of his dealing with the Queen of Spain, we have his letters, we have things written about him by his contemporaries (there’s that word again).

I haven’t personally inspected his letters, but many others have, and if it ever became really important to me, I could investigate the evidence myself and confirm to my satisfaction that Columbus existed.

In fact, if you claimed that Columbus performed miracles (other than causing an eclipse, of course ), I would want to inspect the evidence myself before accepting such a claim.

As far as my ancestors from 2,000 years ago, I can infer that they must have existed, but I can’t know anything about them. I certainly wouldn’t be able to make any definite claims about them, and if I wanted to claim that any of my ancestors worked miracles, then I would definitely have to produce some pretty convincing evidence.

Or would you just take my word for it? Or the word of my family tradition?

 

[PJM]

QUOTE]For the record, I personally am quite happy there’s no god, but I know other atheists who wish they could believe. Some of these people were at one time believers, and they are disappointed that there is no evidence at all for the existence of god.

From your lips to God’s ears my friend!

Love and prayers,