The demand for evidence for the existence of God

[atheistgirl]

Stalin **was **an atheist. The claim that he went to a Seminary is true but he only became a politician and dictator after converting to hard atheism with a dash of Marxism. He and his party killed clergymen, burned a cathedral, and oppressed religion in general not out of separation of Church and State but because according to Stalin atheism was a fact. There is an obvious correlation between at least some of his evil actions and his atheism.

As for Hitler, modern history suggests that while he was baptized Catholic he was either an atheist or neopagan. It is extremely improbable, from a historical perspective, that he was Christian (especially practicing!) or Catholic, ignoring the fact that initiating the Holocaust would have excommunicated himself from the Catholic Church.

I am not for one moment trying to make the point atheists dont, wont, cant or havent done truely awful things.
But look closely at the politics of the time and the role of the orthodox and catholic churches - how these chuches at the very least allowed themselves to be used for their own purposes, if not exactly complicit.

Sarah x

 

[Pieman333272]

I am not for one moment trying to make the point atheists dont, wont, cant or havent done truely awful things.
But look closely at the politics of the time and the role of the orthodox and catholic churches - how these chuches at the very least allowed themselves to be used for their own purposes, if not exactly complicit.

Sarah x

Ahh, I admit there has been some evil caused by religion. But Orthodoxy was not used by Stalin and did not influence his political views at all, in fact it was the victim. And did you hear of the many priests and nuns who saved the Jews of the Holocaust via issuing fake certificates, hiding them in monasteries, and even sacrificing their lives for them?

 

[atheistgirl]

Ahh, I admit there has been some evil caused by religion. But Orthodoxy was not used by Stalin and did not influence his political views at all, in fact it was the victim. And did you hear of the many priests and nuns who saved the Jews of the Holocaust via issuing fake certificates, hiding them in monasteries, and even sacrificing their lives for them?

Yes I did - very heroic and brave people who deserve respect and admiration.

Stalin revived the Orthodox church for his own purposes to generate patriotism during the war, with Sergius being elected by secular authority over all of Moscow and Russia, It led to another major split in the Orthodox church.

And while individual priests and nuns in the catholic church did the most incredibly brave things, the church’s record as a whole leaves a lot to be desired, with celebrating Hitler’s birthday from the pulpits and signing accords all over the place!!

Sarah x

 

[Pieman333272]

Yes I did - very heroic and brave people who deserve respect and admiration.

Good to hear it!

Stalin revived the Orthodox church for his own purposes to generate patriotism during the war, with Sergius being elected by secular authority over all of Moscow and Russia, It led to another major split in the Orthodox church.

Then he was doing it to appeal to the masses. His actions were not related to the Church’s doctrines and he did persecute it at least in part.

And while individual priests and nuns in the catholic church did the most incredibly brave things, the church’s record as a whole leaves a lot to be desired, with celebrating Hitler’s birthday from the pulpits and signing accords all over the place!!

Sarah x

Well, Pius XII did do things towards the Jewish protection and rights. I do acknowledge that there were pro-Fascist priests, but I don’t think they represent either the majority or the authoritative (i.e. Vatican) position on the issue.

 

[atheistgirl]

You can see I hope why atheists have problems with this line of thinking. It goes along the lines of, you cant demonstrate it, you cant prove it, you cant test it, never the less, God is truth, and to say otherwise is hypocracy

Sarah x

 

[Pieman333272]

You can see I hope why atheists have problems with this line of thinking. It goes along the lines of, you cant demonstrate it, you cant prove it, you cant test it, never the less, God is truth, and to say otherwise is hypocracy

Sarah x

Technically, that isn’t true. You can prove God philosophically, and in many ways the reason I think you can’t prove God scientifically is that science takes on a methodological naturalism, which makes God outside its scope. Or do you adhere to scientism?

 

[Touchstone]

Technically, that isn’t true. You can prove God philosophically, and in many ways the reason I think you can’t prove God scientifically is that science takes on a methodological naturalism, which makes God outside its scope. Or do you adhere to scientism?

Uh, doesn’t need to be science. No lab coats needed. Can’t be demonstrated, can’t be tested, can’t be proven, and this is all affirmed by the RCC’s own teachings. A believer must have “faith”, “hope” in things unseen. The inadequacy of the faith in terms of testing, demonstration, proof generally is why it’s called “faith”.

If what you say were true, there wouldn’t be any faith needed, and such credulity would be skeptically disparaged just as much as it is in the secular community.

-TS

P.S. The whitewashing and denialism on Pius XII is not gonna help you make your points!

 

[LogisticsBranch]

A believer must have “faith”, “hope” in things unseen.

Did you forget our conversation on page 2 and 5 and my comment from today on page 10 of this topic? You might want to read it again. Now, this is the Catholic person speaking on behalf of me:

*MASS OF THE LORD’S SUPPER
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Basilica of St John Lateran
Holy Thursday, 1st April 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In his Gospel, Saint John, more fully than the other three evangelists, reports in his own distinctive way the farewell discourses of Jesus; they appear as his testament and a synthesis of the core of his message. They are introduced by the washing of feet, in which Jesus’ redemptive ministry on behalf of a humanity needing purification is summed up in this gesture of humility. Jesus’ words end as a prayer, his priestly prayer, whose background exegetes have traced to the ritual of the Jewish feast of Atonement. The significance of that feast and its rituals – the world’s purification and reconciliation with God – is fulfilled in Jesus’ prayer, a prayer which anticipates his Passion and transforms it into a prayer. The priestly prayer thus makes uniquely evident the perpetual mystery of Holy Thursday: the new priesthood of Jesus Christ and its prolongation in the consecration of the Apostles, in the incorporation of the disciples into the Lord’s priesthood. From this inexhaustibly profound text, I would like to select three sayings of Jesus which can lead us more fully into the mystery of Holy Thursday.

First, there are the words: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). Everyone wants to have life. We long for a life which is authentic, complete, worthwhile, full of joy. This yearning for life coexists with a resistance to death, which nonetheless remains unescapable. When Jesus speaks about eternal life, he is referring to real and true life, a life worthy of being lived. He is not simply speaking about life after death. He is talking about authentic life, a life fully alive and thus not subject to death, yet one which can already, and indeed must, begin in this world. Only if we learn even now how to live authentically, if we learn how to live the life which death cannot take away, does the promise of eternity become meaningful. But how does this happen? What is this true and eternal life which death cannot touch? We have heard Jesus’ answer: this is eternal life, that they may know you – God – and the one whom you have sent, Jesus Christ. Much to our surprise, we are told that life is knowledge. This means first of all that life is relationship. No one has life from himself and only for himself. We have it from others and in a relationship with others. If it is a relationship in truth and love, a giving and receiving, it gives fullness to life and makes it beautiful. But for that very reason, the destruction of that relationship by death can be especially painful, it can put life itself in question. Only a relationship with the One who is himself Life can preserve my life beyond the floodwaters of death, can bring me through them alive. Already in Greek philosophy we encounter the idea that man can find eternal life if he clings to what is indestructible – to truth, which is eternal. He needs, as it were, to be full of truth in order to bear within himself the stuff of eternity. But only if truth is a Person, can it lead me through the night of death. We cling to God – to Jesus Christ the Risen One. And thus we are led by the One who is himself Life. In this relationship we too live by passing through death, since we are not forsaken by the One who is himself Life.

But let us return to Jesus’s words – this is eternal life: that they know you and the One whom you have sent. Knowledge of God becomes eternal life. Clearly “knowledge” here means something more than mere factual knowledge, as, for example, when we know that a famous person has died or a discovery was made. Knowing, in the language of sacred Scripture, is an interior becoming one with the other. Knowing God, knowing Christ, always means loving him, becoming, in a sense, one with him by virtue of that knowledge and love. Our life becomes authentic and true life, and thus eternal life, when we know the One who is the source of all being and all life. And so Jesus’ words become a summons: let us become friends of Jesus, let us try to know him all the more! Let us live in dialogue with him! Let us learn from him how to live aright, let us be his witnesses! Then we become people who love and then we act aright. Then we are truly alive.

Twice in the course of the priestly prayer Jesus speaks of revealing God’s name. “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world” (v. 6). “I have made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (v. 26)*. . . .
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20100401_coena-domini_en.html

 

[hecd2]

It was obvious to them.

In all the long meandering of this thread, through descriptions of various sorts of temporary and eternal ice cream delight, with pistachios and with thick chocolate sauce, via claims and counter-claims of whether atheists or theists do most good or ill in the world, no-one, and certainly not you, has addressed the fundamental epistemic issue at the heart of your tale. How did the other kids know that the ice cream truck was there? Because, sure as eggs is eggs, if there is an ice cream truck and some kids ‘know’ it’s there, there will be a reason based ultimately on sense data. Saying that it’s obvious is about as bankrupt an epistemic analysis of that piece of knowledge as one is likely to get. You’re going to have to dig deeper than that.

Let me spell it out: the only way the kids could be sure that the truck was there at that time was either because it rang its bell, in which case all the kids, including our anti-hero could hear it; or because it turned up on that street corner at that time on every school day, plain as the nose on your face, plain for everyone to see; and the other kids had seen it, week in and week out, and had bought their pistachio and chocolate ripples. The prediction of the presence of the unseen truck depends either on directly sensing it via another sense (eg hearing) or sensing it repeatedly and unfailingly by sight, sound, touch, smell and, above all, taste (seeing as its ice cream) on multiple previous occasions. This is the essence of the scientific method in a parable.

Now just how is that relevant to the proposition that I think you were trying to illustrate - that some people privately believe that there is a supernatural God, by definition beyond sense data, who provides good things and that those who decline to follow them are missing out? (That doesn’t mean there can’t be good arguments in support of the theist proposition, but it does mean that this parable does nothing to promote the idea that those who reject the proposition do so on shaky epistemic grounds. On the contrary the anti-hero in the parable misses out because he rejects the hypothesis that the other kids claim is based on repeatable and reliable sense data, ie evidence, which running round the corner will confirm - more fool him - and not because they have some private supernatural ice cream revelation that somehow eliminates the need for evidence based on sense data in our epistemology).

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Pieman333272]

Uh, doesn’t need to be science. No lab coats needed. Can’t be demonstrated, can’t be tested, can’t be proven, and this is all affirmed by the RCC’s own teachings. A believer must have “faith”, “hope” in things unseen. The inadequacy of the faith in terms of testing, demonstration, proof generally is why it’s called “faith”.

If what you say were true, there wouldn’t be any faith needed, and such credulity would be skeptically disparaged just as much as it is in the secular community.

-TS

Again, it can be proven philosophically and ontologically that God exists. I’m asking again: Do you only accept the word of science, or are you willing to take philosophical ideas?

P.S. The whitewashing and denialism on Pius XII is not gonna help you make your points!

Except for the fact that Pius XII was on a different topic, not God’s existence or testability. You can’t not deal with the reality that Pius XII was at least partially pro-Jewish, unless you’re swallowing atheist propaganda or debunked modern “history”.

 

[hecd2]

By the way I think that arguments based on whether theism or atheism does more good or evil in the world are ultimately sterile if one’s objective is to align one’s belief with reality. It might well be beneficial, anodyne, pragmatic in some circumstances to believe something that is not true. I believe that understanding the true nature of the world is ultimately the most beneficial stance to take, but I will be the first to acknowledge, with a deep debt of gratitude, the good things that have been done and that are being done for individuals and for society by people motivated by religious and particularly monotheistic beliefs. It seems to me that the pre-requisite for that is an adherence to certain values and a certain order, and in particular in the value of humans as individuals, and as far as that goes the Church and I have no argument (leaving aside the Church’s doctrines that seem to me to run counter to that value - and I understand that there are passionately held converse views and I’m not looking for a discussion on that now). There is another, darker, self-righteous side to religious belief but none of this, either good or evil consequences of belief, bears directly on the question of truth of the existence of God, or whether one is right to expect evidence for it before acceding to it. The good or evil comes not from the fact, but from our interpretation of what behaviour, what acts, our belief entails - and that can have good or evil consequences in the same circumstances in the hands of different people.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[atheistgirl]

Again, it can be proven philosophically and ontologically that God exists.

Is this Saint Anselm’s ontological proof youre refering to?

Sarah x

 

[JDaniel]

Ahh, I admit there has been some evil caused by religion. But Orthodoxy was not used by Stalin and did not influence his political views at all, in fact it was the victim. And did you hear of the many priests and nuns who saved the Jews of the Holocaust via issuing fake certificates, hiding them in monasteries, and even sacrificing their lives for them?

Pieman:

Christianity, per se, has not caused ‘evil’. Self-styled religious people, claiming to be Christian, have. But, unless Christianity has been usurped, it cannot cause evil. In fact, if everyone on Earth were real Christians, there would utterly be no need for laws.

The antithesis of religion is religion-less. Religionlessness has caused nearly incalculable quantities and categories of evil. A dys-religious person has no choice but to defend him- or her-self by blame-shifting. The religious man or woman, wretched as he or she may be, cannot commit evil as it is a violation of their very act of being, like purposely strangling one’s self: it is suicide. “Wretchedness” means, the inalterability of lusting, for example. As regards the Christian, by ‘evil’ I mean: any violation, no matter how small, of the Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, and perhaps Religion and some other potential parts of Justice. These are the activities of life for Christians (who are not religion-less). While the antithesis is true of the non-religious (non-Christian, non-Jewish, non-Muslim), as history has shown us. I cannot speak for Buddhism or Hinduism, as it is difficult for me to conceive of a universality of non-Abrahamic-God people being virtuous in the sense of the aforementioned; however, perhaps a Buddhist or a Hindi will undertake an explanation.

But now, the dys-religious people will point to a number of Old Testament events. These are the ways of God - and His way are not our ways - which occurred prior to the final Covenant. We can but impute our puny judgments to them, and, we are given to see only a very narrow picture of those historic events. God also destroyed the prehistoric mammoth lizards, and the prehistoric megalodons and placoderms, for His purposes. We can but impute.

God bless,
jd

 

[Pieman333272]

Is this Saint Anselm’s ontological proof youre refering to?

Sarah x

Actually no, I don’t like that “proof”. What I do like is Alvin Planteaga’s proof from potentiality as well as a collection of independent proofs I’ve read.

 

[Touchstone]

Again, it can be proven philosophically and ontologically that God exists. I’m asking again: Do you only accept the word of science, or are you willing to take philosophical ideas?

Science is philosophy. But I said above, no need to hold to a threshold as high as science to make the point – the demonstration is not forthcoming, the evidence is not available, no tests avail. You can lower the bar way down to very casual non-scientific terms, and faith is still what gets you there, to belief. And by the teachings of your own faith!].

If you have a proof for the existence of God, don’t waste your time here, you should be famous by Friday! Let the world know! That would be big news.

But please don’t tell me you are getting the term “Proof for God’s existence” as the proof itself, like saying it poofs something into existence. A “proof of God’s existence” is a proposed argument. It may point to what it supposes is evidence that counts as “proof”, but supposing that the argument is the proof itself confuses two very different senses of proof. A “geometric proof” admits of no evidence, for example. “Proof of guilt” is another meaning for the word. Either your confusing these, or someone is pulling your leg.

Or you really should be famous by Friday!

Except for the fact that Pius XII was on a different topic, not God’s existence or testability. You can’t not deal with the reality that Pius XII was at least partially pro-Jewish, unless you’re swallowing atheist propaganda or debunked modern “history”.

I can deal with it, no problem. Josef Stalin was an important supporter of the formation of the state of Israel. Partially “pro-Jewish”, and support for a good thing is a good thing. No different for Pope Pius XII. No one is “purely good” or “purely evil” that I’m aware of. Pius XII I’m sure had many good features. But when it really counted, at massive scale, with myriad lives and futures in the balance, he was a conspicuous moral failure.

Some popes are better than others.

-TS

 

[atheistgirl]

Pieman:

Christianity, per se, has not caused ‘evil’. Self-styled religious people, claiming to be Christian, have. But, unless Christianity has been usurped, it cannot cause evil. In fact, if everyone on Earth were real Christians, there would utterly be no need for laws.

The antithesis of religion is religion-less. Religionlessness has caused nearly incalculable quantities and categories of evil. A dys-religious person has no choice but to defend him- or her-self by blame-shifting. The religious man or woman, wretched as he or she may be, cannot commit evil as it is a violation of their very act of being, like purposely strangling one’s self: it is suicide. “Wretchedness” means, the inalterability of lusting, for example. As regards the Christian, by ‘evil’ I mean: any violation, no matter how small, of the Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, and perhaps Religion and some other potential parts of Justice. These are the activities of life for Christians (who are not religion-less). While the antithesis is true of the non-religious (non-Christian, non-Jewish, non-Muslim), as history has shown us. I cannot speak for Buddhism or Hinduism, as it is difficult for me to conceive of a universality of non-Abrahamic-God people being virtuous in the sense of the aforementioned; however, perhaps a Buddhist or a Hindi will undertake an explanation.

But now, the dys-religious people will point to a number of Old Testament events. These are the ways of God - and His way are not our ways - which occurred prior to the final Covenant. We can but impute our puny judgments to them, and, we are given to see only a very narrow picture of those historic events. God also destroyed the prehistoric mammoth lizards, and the prehistoric megalodons and placoderms, for His purposes. We can but impute.

God bless,
jd

Interesting - are you saying that the inquisition, the crusides, the kidnap and indoctrination of jewish children, the fatwahs, and so on have all been instigated by, led by, and supported by dys-religious people?

Sarah x

 

[atheistgirl]

Actually no, I don’t like that “proof”. .

Aww shucks

I was about to prove to you Im the sexiest girl that ever lived ever anywhere in the whole of the universe

Sarah x

 

[JDaniel]

Some popes are better than others.

-TS

Hello, TS:

Rather, some people are better than others (in the moral sense).

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Interesting - are you saying that the inquisition, the crusides, the kidnap and indoctrination of jewish children, the fatwahs, and so on have all been instigated by, led by, and supported by dys-religious people?

Sarah x

Hello, Sarah:

Well, not all of them. And, really, if you haven’t studied the facts of the Inquisition, or the Crusades, I would respectfully request you do so. But, ‘yes’ for the rest.

God bless,
jd

 

[atheistgirl]

Actually no, I don’t like that “proof”. What I do like is Alvin Planteaga’s proof from potentiality as well as a collection of independent proofs I’ve read.

I hadnt heard of this guy, but Ive just looked him up, read his proof, then read a comprehensive refutation of it.

Sarah x