To the skeptics: what evidence would convince you?

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You are on a Catholic forum, my bet is that you have’nt asked yourself why you are.
My interest in religion comes from one source only. I have no choice. I am actually interested in many other things, such as science, morality, society, politics, education, sexuality, medicine and so on. In every single one of these realms without fail I am presented with the god premise.

As with any relam of discussion if a level two premise is based on one or more level one premises I am forced to establish the level one premises before excepting the level two premise. Since people in the realms I listed present god as a level one premise upon which they expect me to accept other premises, then it becomes by business to question whether the first level premise is at all credible.

I am on forums such as this in order to establish for myself whether or not this is so. And as I said in 20 years of asking I have not been shown a single shred of a scrap of evidence, argument, reasons or data to lend any credence to the notion that some non-human intelligence is responsible for the creation and subsequent maintenance of our universe.

Should you become aware of any please let me know as I would be AGOG to hear it, but in the interim please do not go around making assumptions about either me or my motives.
 
I would like to see proof that you exist, because I don’t think you do. In fact, I’m sure you don’t exist. I am agog to hear your evidence. It would change everything!
Derail threads often? You might want to change the subject from what the OP wanted it to being about me, but I am not about to pander to that. You can either discuss what I have said on the topic, or you can not. But do not think you can put up smoke screens with subject changes and tangents.

Suffice to say however, at least my existence does something the existence of god does not. It passes the initial credibility test of noticing that OTHER people exist, therefore the claim that a person like me exists requires no extraordinary evidence.

Your claim that a god exists however appears, thus far, to be based on literally nothing. Should you come up with anything I would be agog to hear it. If the best you can come up with is subject changes and a sarky attempt to take my own words and parrot them back to me, then I thank you for the generosity you have shown with your time thus far, but I require no more of it.

I do however thank you for your odd decision to quote my ENTIRE post in order to do your sarky parroting of my own words back to me. It increased my exposure.
 
Ask and you shall receive…
Please point me to the exact passage before 1:14 where
it says the stars and sun were created.
7 And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament,
from those that were above the firmament, and it was so. 8 And God called the
firmament, Heaven; and the evening and morning were the second day

**Light **was created before the stars or our sun. Strange but true. Our stone-age man would not make such a basic mistake as to say that *light *was created before the’ *lights in the sky’ *were created. So we will trust him not to say something so silly ‘by mistake’.
And what do we find, we find that 10 seconds after the BB the universe was dominated by photons, **light **– but with no stars or sun or lights in the sky. Just as he said then, light was created before the sun and stars,- the ‘lights in the sky’.
So, now I trust our stone-age friend again when he says that plants were created before the lights in the sky were ‘made’. Another outlandish statement from this stone-age upstart. But lets see if I can make it work;
At some point God said let there be light, this was at the beginning of our universe 13-14 billion years ago. Water is the symbol used for his creation, and the firmament is space. The next thing He did was to put the firmament between the waters. Space and distance between His creation, the planets and stars or proto-planets and proto-stars.
Then we see planet earth created somewhere before 4.6 billion years ago. We see the first plants created soon after. Then the moon is started by collision around 4.4 billion years ago. Plants continue to develop, albeit in a simple form. The moon forms finally as a spherical moon in an orbit around earth around 4 billion years ago. The earth, tilted by the collision, we presume finally finds a stable angle of axis and a stable slower rotation at this time. Now the animals are created in this more hospitable system.
Going back over this for a second, we see that when the earth formed around 4.6 billion years ago the sun became for it - the big light in the sky- and the other stars also became visible to the new earth. The plants were created then and soon after, the moon - the lesser light in the sky - finally finished forming, or being made, and it too was visible to the new earth. When the moon had finished being made the earth system had finally been altered, the earth had a new tilt from the collision, giving it the seasons and it had a much slower rotation because of the moons mass, giving the earth the ‘days and hours’.
And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars. 17 And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth. 18 And to rule the day and the night, and to divide the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years:
Really, can you please link me a respectable source that would claim you had
I think I gave you the quotes and their source, if you cannot find one let me know.

11 And he said: Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done.
As every biologist will tell you everything is connected if you go back far enough. The trees in your garden are direct descendants of simple single cell primordial plants, all our flowering plants and herbs came from the first plant. And single cell plants yield after their own kind and have ‘seed in themselves’ too, no less than any other plant.

20 God also said: Let the waters bring forth the creeping creature having life, and the fowl that may fly over the earth under the firmament of heaven.
Just so. First plants. Then the moon. Then longer days and seasons. Then animal crawled from the waters. Then land animals multiplied.
 
My interest in religion comes from one source only. I have no choice. I am actually interested in many other things, such as science, morality, society, politics, education, sexuality, medicine and so on. In every single one of these realms without fail I am presented with the god premise.

As with any relam of discussion if a level two premise is based on one or more level one premises I am forced to establish the level one premises before excepting the level two premise. Since people in the realms I listed present god as a level one premise upon which they expect me to accept other premises, then it becomes by business to question whether the first level premise is at all credible.

I am on forums such as this in order to establish for myself whether or not this is so. And as I said in 20 years of asking I have not been shown a single shred of a scrap of evidence, argument, reasons or data to lend any credence to the notion that some non-human intelligence is responsible for the creation and subsequent maintenance of our universe.

Should you become aware of any please let me know as I would be AGOG to hear it, but in the interim please do not go around making assumptions about either me or my motives.
Nice post. If everyone in every realm of your experience for the last twenty years starts with a ‘first level permise’ that God exists - is that not evidence. Please can you speak english to me.
“…science, morality, society, politics, education, sexuality, medicine and so on. In every single one of these realms without fail I am presented with the god premise…”
And you do not see this as in any way evidence? Is everybody but you insane and dilusional?
 
And you do not see this as in any way evidence? Is everybody but you insane and dilusional?
Thing,

I have never used words like insane, I hope having now used it yourself you will not move to in some way attribute them to me. Not once have I ever called a believer in god insane. The most I have EVER done is ask them why they think so, or when using it as support of a second level premise, whether they can establish their claims.

No, what you describe is what is commonly known as „Argument ad populum“ or argument from numbers. There is a reason why it is counted among the top know fallacies. If you do nothing else today you would do well to look it up at length.

The number of people to espouse a belief has no bearing on whether that belief is true or not.

However what these numbers DO do is indicate the area of religion as being worthy of further investigation, which is why I come to sites such as this, as well as other types.

There are many things that were once believed by nearly everybody, but we now know to be false. Epilepsy was thought to be some form of possession by spirity. The earth was thought to be flat. I could list them all day but it risks derailing the thread.

What we learn from this however is that, as I said, mere numbers of adherents do not make a concept true. At best it merely highlights an area for further inquiry.

And as I said, yourself now included, after 20 years of further inquiry I have not been show a shred of a scrap of evidence to lend any credence to the notion that some non-human intelligence is responsible for the creation and subsequent maintenance of our universe. And that is just deism! Let alone theism which clearly requires even further argument and data again.

But, as always, I am here for one reason only. I am AGOG to hear the evidence. Should you come in to any, please present it if you will.
 
“**completely **on our own” is a false assumption…
An absurd conclusion!None of what you have mentioned has forced people to believe
Really? Raising children from birth to believe at an age when they’re trusting and unthinking is not forcing them to believe? Why is it that people tend to adopt the religion of their parents?

(In fact, I would wager that the reason you feel on an intuitive level that a “supreme mind” is the thing that makes the most sense, is that it’s the idea you were raised on. Most religious people had their free will to decide what to believe taken away from them by their parents.

People who were brought up in secular families tend not to have that intuitive feel for God, or at least that’s the sense I get from these people. For them, the idea of the supernatural and God is very alien and nonsensical.)

But returning to the subject of miracles, when Jesus was on earth, he allegedly performed miracles before others, is that not forcing them to believe?

Mary has allegedly performed miracles, including the big one at Fatima, is that not forcing people to believe?

That is where I see a contradiction. Your argument is that it makes no sense for God to perform a large scale miracle so that we would all know he exists, but at the same time it makes sense for God to have Mary perform a miracle, or to become man and perform miracles so that others might believe?

You’re essentially saying that God is okay with doing unconvincing miracles that might be explained away naturally, but he doesn’t want to go all the way and do a convincing miracle. Why bother with the unconvincing ones then?

It’s very curious, because unconvincing miracles are consistent with there not being a God at all.

And that brings me back to what would convince me. Miracles that are truly miraculous would, “miracles” that are entirely consistent with a godless universe would not.
 
Thing,

I have never used words like insane, I hope having now used it yourself you will not move to in some way attribute them to me. Not once have I ever called a believer in god insane. The most I have EVER done is ask them why they think so, or when using it as support of a second level premise, whether they can establish their claims.

No, what you describe is what is commonly known as „Argument ad populum“ or argument from numbers. There is a reason why it is counted among the top know fallacies. If you do nothing else today you would do well to look it up at length.

The number of people to espouse a belief has no bearing on whether that belief is true or not.

However what these numbers DO do is indicate the area of religion as being worthy of further investigation, which is why I come to sites such as this, as well as other types.

There are many things that were once believed by nearly everybody, but we now know to be false. Epilepsy was thought to be some form of possession by spirity. The earth was thought to be flat. I could list them all day but it risks derailing the thread.

What we learn from this however is that, as I said, mere numbers of adherents do not make a concept true. At best it merely highlights an area for further inquiry.

And as I said, yourself now included, after 20 years of further inquiry I have not been show a shred of a scrap of evidence to lend any credence to the notion that some non-human intelligence is responsible for the creation and subsequent maintenance of our universe. And that is just deism! Let alone theism which clearly requires even further argument and data again.

But, as always, I am here for one reason only. I am AGOG to hear the evidence. Should you come in to any, please present it if you will.
No problem, Nozzy.
I called everyone insane and dilusional, I did not say *you *did. I would call *everyone *insane and dilusional if everyone believed in Leprechauns - *as *I understand them.

As to your Argumentum ad populum; did I ever *say *that if everyone believes something it must be true. Please do not do to me what you accuse me of doing to you!
Argumentum ad populum speaks to me clearly as evidence; if I saw everyone running → that way, I would stand and wonder why this could happen. Could it be that everyone sees some reason for running together that way. Could it be that it may be a good idea to run that way. These are the questions I would ask myself based on this *Evidence *which I *can *see before me!
 
Thing,

No no of course you did not say I called anyone insane. I merely wanted to point out that you were the first to reduce this to that level, and I wanted to pre-empt any possibility of anyone making the mistake of thinking that this was anything but YOUR choice of words and does not resemble my position in the slightest.

Things like that stick in peoples heads and I do not wish for anyone 20 posts later in this thread to remember me, and not you, as the first person to use that word in conjunction with that group of people.

You asked me if the number of people who think something is true constitutes any evidence that it is true to me. That was your question so I do not do anything to you by responding to this.

As I said, the answer is no. The number of people that believe in something is a direct indication that something warrants further investigation. Regardless of whether this is the number of people who think there is a god, or a mob running in one direction. In fact quite often the mob running are in fact doing the wrong thing as holding your ground, running towards the scary event, or seeking near by cover are the correct things to do. Without further investigation you simply have no idea if their course of action is the correct one, though clearly it is worth of instant investigation.

No, a large group of people do one thing and one thing only: They indicate areas that warrant further investigation. No more.
 
Thing,

No no of course you did not say I called anyone insane. I merely wanted to point out that you were the first to reduce this to that level, and I wanted to pre-empt any possibility of anyone making the mistake of thinking that this was anything but YOUR choice of words and does not resemble my position in the slightest.

Things like that stick in peoples heads and I do not wish for anyone 20 posts later in this thread to remember me, and not you, as the first person to use that word in conjunction with that group of people.

You asked me if the number of people who think something is true constitutes any evidence that it is true to me. That was your question so I do not do anything to you by responding to this.

As I said, the answer is no. The number of people that believe in something is a direct indication that something warrants further investigation. Regardless of whether this is the number of people who think there is a god, or a mob running in one direction. In fact quite often the mob running are in fact doing the wrong thing as holding your ground, running towards the scary event, or seeking near by cover are the correct things to do. Without further investigation you simply have no idea if their course of action is the correct one, though clearly it is worth of instant investigation.

No, a large group of people do one thing and one thing only: They indicate areas that warrant further investigation. No more.
I think people who believe in Leprechauns are insane and delusional.

OK, are we happy with that.

Again I did not say that numbers constitute proof, I said they constitute evidence. You investigate evidence, one does not investigate nothing.
 
If you wish to discuss leprechauns then so be it, but I am not sure this is the subject of the thread at hand.

As I said I do not see the numbers as evidence, but merely as an indication of where to look for evidence. Even if 100% of people believe X then this is still not evidence for X. After all if 100% of those people died, X is still either true or not.

No, a given % of people believing something is merely evidence of where to look and no more, and so the number of people who think there is a god moves me to investigate for evidence to support that proposition.

Alas, despite the sheer numbers of adherents, I am still waiting for the first piece of evidence to come in after 20 years of asking. If it was not for the sheer number of adherents I would have stopped asking long ago.
 
If you wish to discuss leprechauns then so be it, but I am not sure this is the subject of the thread at hand.

As I said I do not see the numbers as evidence, but merely as an indication of where to look for evidence. Even if 100% of people believe X then this is still not evidence for X. After all if 100% of those people died, X is still either true or not.

No, a given % of people believing something is merely evidence of where to look and no more, and so the number of people who think there is a god moves me to investigate for evidence to support that proposition.

Alas, despite the sheer numbers of adherents, I am still waiting for the first piece of evidence to come in after 20 years of asking. If it was not for the sheer number of adherents I would have stopped asking long ago.
So it *is *evidence, and it spurs you on to look for more and specific evidence. Here is your next stop; Investigate the image on the Shroud of Turin. You ask me to show you evidence which you can investigate. There you are. Tell me how that image was formed.
 
Thing,

I think at this point we are not arguing over procedure, but the semantics of words. It seems we may even be agreeing to some extent, but it is merely the vagaries of the English language that are coming between us.

I do not think it evidence of what may or may not be true, but of what is and is not worth looking into. So you are right, the numbers of believers is “evidence” if you insist on using that word. It is just not evidence that the proposition that there is a god is true. It is evidence that the proposition that there is a god is worth looking into.

A subtle but important difference I feel.

I am afraid however the onus is not on me to tell you how an image on a cloth was or was not formed. If you wish to suggest it was formed by a deity then the onus is on you to provide evidence for that. It is not for me to produce counter evidence for my theory, and even if I have no theory at all this does not lend ANY credence to yours.

Imagine if you will the following conversation between two 10 year old kids:

Kid1: Where do babies come from?
Kid2: The stork brings them!
Kid1: Hmmm what makes you think that?
Kid2: Well where do you think babies come from?
Kid1: I honestly do not know.
Kid2: Aha! See? The stork DOES bring them!

You have essentially played the part of “KID2” in this dialogue. You are attempting to find something I personally have no explanation for (and even if I do provide mine you will move to another, then another, then another until such time as you find something on which I have to say “I honestly do not know”) as if that would then be evidence for a god. It is not. The onus is on you to show the explanation for this is somehow supernatural, not on me to show it is not.

In essence, what you are attempting to do is say “Because it can not be explained… it can therefore be explained!” which is clearly a contradiction, especially if the explanation you are offering is one that itself you have shown no evidence for the existence of. You dump yourself into a circular argument then where the only evidence you have for god is some shroud, and the only evidence for this shroud being magic is the god, and the only evidence for the god is the shroud, but the only evidence for the shroud being…

you get the picture, I could go on and on with that circle.
 
Thing,

I think at this point we are not arguing over procedure, but the semantics of words. It seems we may even be agreeing to some extent, but it is merely the vagaries of the English language that are coming between us.

I do not think it evidence of what may or may not be true, but of what is and is not worth looking into. So you are right, the numbers of believers is “evidence” if you insist on using that word. It is just not evidence that the proposition that there is a god is true. It is evidence that the proposition that there is a god is worth looking into.

A subtle but important difference I feel.

I am afraid however the onus is not on me to tell you how an image on a cloth was or was not formed. If you wish to suggest it was formed by a deity then the onus is on you to provide evidence for that. It is not for me to produce counter evidence for my theory, and even if I have no theory at all this does not lend ANY credence to yours.

Imagine if you will the following conversation between two 10 year old kids:

Kid1: Where do babies come from?
Kid2: The stork brings them!
Kid1: Hmmm what makes you think that?
Kid2: Well where do you think babies come from?
Kid1: I honestly do not know.
Kid2: Aha! See? The stork DOES bring them!

You have essentially played the part of “KID2” in this dialogue. You are attempting to find something I personally have no explanation for (and even if I do provide mine you will move to another, then another, then another until such time as you find something on which I have to say “I honestly do not know”) as if that would then be evidence for a god. It is not. The onus is on you to show the explanation for this is somehow supernatural, not on me to show it is not.

In essence, what you are attempting to do is say “Because it can not be explained… it can therefore be explained!” which is clearly a contradiction, especially if the explanation you are offering is one that itself you have shown no evidence for the existence of. You dump yourself into a circular argument then where the only evidence you have for god is some shroud, and the only evidence for this shroud being magic is the god, and the only evidence for the god is the shroud, but the only evidence for the shroud being…

you get the picture, I could go on and on with that circle.
I did’nt think you were such a big scaredy cat, Nozzy. You have repeatedly asked for evidence to investigate and now you refuse to investigate it. You demand that I do the investigating for you!
The Sacred Scriptures of our religion say that the angel of the Lord folded up the cloth which had been over His head and placed it separately in the tomb. This cloth has been preserved by His Church and has a good provinance. Now go investigate and do not be afraid.🙂
 
What would convince the atheists and agnostics that God exists? Is there any evidence that would convince people that a God exists Furthermore, for the converts what evidence convinced you that a general God exists (or even your specific deity such as the triune Christian God for most people here.) I am not sure anyone who was born Catholic was convinced by any evidence because most of their “proofs” seem to be developed post hoc to justify their religion after they acquire it.
It would literally take the act of God changing my mind to have me believe. He must enter my heart and mind so completely that I have no choice but to believe.
 
It would literally take the act of God changing my mind to have me believe. He must enter my heart and mind so completely that I have no choice but to believe.
That is a good reply. That is what needs to be done, to ask Him to enter and help.
 
What would convince the atheists and agnostics that God exists? Is there any evidence that would convince people that a God exists Furthermore, for the converts what evidence convinced you that a general God exists (or even your specific deity such as the triune Christian God for most people here.) I am not sure anyone who was born Catholic was convinced by any evidence because most of their “proofs” seem to be developed post hoc to justify their religion after they acquire it.
Under laboratory conditions, prove to me that a man who has been dead for three days can come back to life
AND
Prove to me that a woman who has not been inseminated (through sex or artificially) can give birth (it doesn’t have to be a baby boy)

Prove all this without making references to your little black book or to invisible beings who only speak to you but not to me

I could ask for loads of proof as it you and your lot who is making these fanciful claims, but this will do for starters
 
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