Well, why?

[Marc_Anthony]

Why believe in one God if no empirical evidence supports God’s existence?

To extend this thought-why then be Christian and not any other religion?

 

[JohnDamian]

Why believe in one God if no empirical evidence supports God’s existence?

Because empiricism is pseudointellectual.

To extend this thought-why then be Christian and not any other religion?

Because Catholocism was the church founded by Jesus Christ. As I believe Jesus to be God It seems only right to be a Catholic. Of course, this is only a matter of belief and not knowlege.

 

[Mark77]

**Empirical; “The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment.”

i disagree 100% with your statement; “Why believe in one God if no empirical evidence supports God’s existence?”

As far as i can tell, all empirical evidence leads to the conclusion that there is a God!

If one honestly observes, experiences & experiments, there can only be one conclusion, that a loving God created everything with infinite beauty, variety & universal consistency (ie. every electron in the nearly infinite universe follows the same laws). **

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

 

[LoyalViews]

**Empirical; “The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment.”

i disagree 100% with your statement; “Why believe in one God if no empirical evidence supports God’s existence?”

As far as i can tell, all empirical evidence leads to the conclusion that there is a God!
**
If one honestly observes, experiences & experiments, there can only be one conclusion, that a loving God created everything with infinite beauty, variety & universal consistency (ie. every electron in the nearly infinite universe follows the same laws).

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

+AMEN+

 

[Marc_Anthony]

**Empirical; “The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment.”

i disagree 100% with your statement; “Why believe in one God if no empirical evidence supports God’s existence?”

As far as i can tell, all empirical evidence leads to the conclusion that there is a God!
**
If one honestly observes, experiences & experiments, there can only be one conclusion, that a loving God created everything with infinite beauty, variety & universal consistency (ie. every electron in the nearly infinite universe follows the same laws).

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

Keep in mind that I AM Catholic. But I’ll play devil’s advocate. What exactly do you mean that, “All empirical evidence to the conclusion that there is a God?”

I had a theology teacher who was fond of saying that God could not be proven by science. So why do we believe in Him?

Further, I disagree, speaking as a Catholic. Empirical evidence will NOT prove God’s existence. Are you telling me that if we got two identical situations, and we prayed for one and not the other, you would find a statistically significant difference?

Say my fictional twin brother and I both tried out for the soccer team. Only one of us could make it. We have equally good tryouts. I pray. My brother does not. Will I get on? I understand that there are reasons God would not answer my prayer, but then we have no empirical proof God is doing anything. So wy believe in Him.

JohnDamian-Why do you believe Jesus is God?

 

[Equites_Christi]

I cannot, personally, really answer your question about empiricism; the reason being that I think pure empiricism is silly and scientific overkill.

People do not seem to naturally use empiricism to the extent non-theists think it should be used. People use faith everyday with situations and the people around them, but when the subject turns to theology we’re told to break out the ruler and scale. In other words, to live and only accept as true what can be scientifically demonstrated beyond a doubt before your very eyes is, to me, inhuman.

As to your actual question, I’m sure others can give a more direct answer. But a neat thing is, if it can be demonstrated that Jesus was the Son of God, you can answer God’s existence and choosing Christianity in one sweep! And from there, a brief look at history and you’re standing at the doors of the Catholic Church.

God Bless!

 

[davidv]

Keep in mind that I AM Catholic. But I’ll play devil’s advocate. What exactly do you mean that, "All empirical evidence to the conclusion that there is a God
I had a theology teacher who was fond of saying that God could not be proven by science. So why do we believe in Him?

No proof is needed because the evidence pointing to Him exists.

Further, I disagree, speaking as a Catholic. Empirical evidence will NOT prove God’s existence. Are you telling me that if we got two identical situations, and we prayed for one and not the other, you would find a statistically significant difference?

Say my fictional twin brother and I both tried out for the soccer team. Only one of us could make it. We have equally good tryouts. I pray. My brother does not. Will I get on? I understand that there are reasons God would not answer my prayer, but then we have no empirical proof God is doing anything. So wy believe in Him.

This sounds like the kind of testing forbidden in Scripture.

‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’ (Matthew (NAB) 4:7)

JohnDamian-Why do you believe Jesus is God?

Evidence preserved and taught by the Church shows that He is.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

No proof is needed because the evidence pointing to Him exists.

This sounds like the kind of testing forbidden in Scripture.

So what then? There’s no reason to believe?

Evidence preserved and taught by the Church shows that He is.

What evidence?

 

[davidv]

So what then? There’s no reason to believe?

How do you get this from what I posted?

What evidence?

What counts as evidence?

 

[Marc_Anthony]

How do you get this from what I posted?

Well, we’re not allowed to do tests to try and prove God’s existence (and it’s true; we’re not).

So how could we establish His eistence or not?

What counts as evidence?

Present whatever you consider evidence, I’m open to it.

 

[davidv]

Well, we’re not allowed to do tests to try and prove God’s existence (and it’s true; we’re not).

So how could we establish His eistence or not?

Present whatever you consider evidence, I’m open to it.

Why do you think I have to prove God’s existence? I already accept it as fact.

As evidence I will offer all of Salvation History, as collected and preserved in the Church, some of which is recorded in the Bible.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Why do you think I have to prove God’s existence? I already accept it as fact.

As evidence I will offer all of Salvation History, as collected and preserved in the Church, some of which is recorded in the Bible.

Fair enough. Any reason you believe the Bible to be True as opposed to, say, The Tripitaka or the Quran?

 

[AntiTheist]

Since Marc Anthony is, for the purposes of argument, adopting a skeptic’s position – which is my position – I thought my comments might be useful.

For every claim, there must be evidence to support it. Here, evidence is data that adequately supports a particular claim. The more evidence we have, the more likely the claim is to be true. Those claims for which there is no evidence may be dismissed (a claim that has no evidence to support it is indistinguishable from a claim that is not true).

Different claims, naturally, are going to require different evidence. If my claim is, “I feel happy right now,” then I can support that claim with nothing more than my own observation of my emotional state – since it is a claim about what’s going on in my head.

If my claim is, “There is a conspiracy against me,” then I cannot use my own observation of my emotional state as evidence for this claim. The reason for this is that this is a claim about the world outside of my head, and thus data that comes only from inside my head cannot be used to support the claim.

In a similar way, the claim, “A disembodied intelligence exists that created the world and cares for all creatures in it and currently intervenes in nature” is a claim about the world outside of your head. No amount of observing your internal experiences will be able to support this claim.

Marc Anthony gave a good example of the kind of evidence that would be required to demonstrate this claim: experiments that would demosntrate a statistically significant increase in some variable in a double-blind test.

I gave an example of this in another thread recently: get a bunch of groups of Christians to pray for rain in various locations – and have a bunch of control groups doing the same thing elsewhere (members of different religions, atheists just concentrating hard, etc.). You’d have to conduct a lot of these tests over a long period of time, but if you could demonstrate statistically significant increases in rainfall in those areas where Christians prayed – and only those areas (let’s say that areas surrounding the prayed-for region have normal rainfall, but the prayed-for region itself has inexplicably high amounts of rainfall, possibly seriously reversing expected weather patterns) – then you sure would have some data!

Now that, in and of itself, wouldn’t be iron-clad evidence that a god exists (maybe prayer works on some psychic power that doesn’t require a god, for example), but those god claims are going to start looking a lot more viable if you can demonstrate actual effects of prayer – especially if the prayers only worked when said by members of a specific religion. It would tell us that there is something special about this particular religion, and the claims of that religion would be worth seriously considering.

Now that’s not going to happen, but here’s the question: why not? If prayer is real, then it should have real effects that are measurable. If you’re saying it’s real but it has no detectable effects, then it is indistinguishable from not working at all.

 

[davidv]

Fair enough. Any reason you believe the Bible to be True as opposed to, say, The Tripitaka or the Quran?

The God-man, Jesus, established a Church, to protect and teach the Truth. The Scripture of the Bible was collected and attested to by this Church. No other document can rightfully claim this pedigree.

 

[AntiTheist]

As evidence I will offer all of Salvation History, as collected and preserved in the Church, some of which is recorded in the Bible.

You’re begging the question – this “history” already assumes that a god exists. For what reason do you think that the supernatural elements of the Bible account are true?

Typically, believers will try to claim that the Bible is accurate because there are real locations in the Bible and/or some real people or events – but this no more proves that the supernatural parts of the story are true than the existence of New York proves that the Spiderman movies are true.

 

[davidv]

You’re begging the question – this “history” already assumes that a god exists.

Not true. The history records the evidences of God’s interaction with humans.

For what reason do you think that the supernatural elements of the Bible account are true?

The reason is that the Church that teaches it has not been proven wrong with regard to faith and morals.

Typically, believers will try to claim that the Bible is accurate because there are real locations in the Bible and/or some real people or events – but this no more proves that the supernatural parts of the story are true than the existence of New York proves that the Spiderman movies are true.

That a god exists is evident in nature. No Scripture is required. The trustworthiness of the Scriptures follows from the revelations preserved and taught by the Church.

 

[AntiTheist]

Not true. The history records the evidences of God’s interaction with humans.

Well, there are stories that there was a god who assumed human form. Most of these stories come from documents written down, at the earliest, decades after the events supposedly happened, with no contemporary eye-witness accounts to back them up.

That’s not my idea of a trustworthy history.

The reason [that the supernatural elements of the Bible stories are true] is that the Church that teaches it has not been proven wrong with regard to faith and morals.

Well, aside from the fact that it sounds like you have an unfalsifiable reason (how could anyone prove church teachings to be “wrong”?), the reason does not support the claim in this case.

That a god exists is evident in nature.

Well, evidently, it’s not evident, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I don’t see any reason to think that nature is the work of a god of any kind.

 

[davidv]

Well, there are stories that there was a god who assumed human form. Most of these stories come from documents written down, at the earliest, decades after the events supposedly happened, with no contemporary eye-witness accounts to back them up.

That’s not my idea of a trustworthy history.

Do you throw out writing and teachings of Plato and Aristotle on the same basis?

Well, aside from the fact that it sounds like you have an unfalsifiable reason (how could anyone prove church teachings to be “wrong”?), the reason does not support the claim in this case.

Why? Just because you say so? For nearly 20 centuries, the Church’s teachings have been under attack. None of these attacks have shown any error.

Well, evidently, it’s not evident, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I don’t see any reason to think that nature is the work of a god of any kind.

Just because you don’t accept it as evidence doesn’t make not evidence.

 

[Sarpedon]

Empiricism is part of a broader intellectual frontier. Empiricism is not the sum total of everything. It cannot be, since we only know empiricism through philosophy. I see no empirical evidence for God and I do not care, because reality goes further than empiricism.

I will be out of town for a week.

 

[timotheos]

Why believe in one God if no empirical evidence supports God’s existence?

To extend this thought-why then be Christian and not any other religion?

Human beings are served by scientific inquiry. The subject under study is also subservient to the student.

How can you claim that methods that are devised by us and are therefore no greater than ourselves, and further are limited to study of the physical world, should be able to prove the existence of a being necessarily infinitely greater than ourselves? In other words, why must God necessarily be a subject captive to our scientific method? Why must he become a laboratory rat for your edification?

Do you doubt that certain human beings in history were personal witnesses of events of supernatural origin, events not subject to scientific study? If so, on what basis do you choose to disbelieve someone else’s account of, say, Jesus walking on water, or seas parting, or the apparition at Knock, Ireland, or the events at Fatima, Portugal, or Elijah’s showdown with the priests of Baal, or numerous other occurrences in Judaeo-Christian history? Is there no un-provable phenomenon outside of your own personal experience worthy of consideration? What makes your personal powers of observation and reason so much greater than, say, St. Peter, or Paul, or Catherine of Siena, or John Bosco, or Thomas Aquinas?

Is it that you would insist on access to the supernatural on a level equal to that of St. John, or Padre Pio, or Bernadette of Lourdes, or Sr. Faustina before you would consider belief in God? Or do you choose to dismiss their stories as the ravings of madmen and madwomen by definition – that these occurrences simply cannot exist in reality?

Either you are right, and they were all wrong. Or vice-versa. If you have not read about them, I would. Vincible ignorance is a choice. Acceptance of the possibility of God is not the worst thing to happen to you, you know.

-Tim