Well, why?

[AntiTheist]

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

No, because it is their ideas that matter, not whether or not that specific man who did specific deeds lived.

Theists usually use Socrates because there actually is a lack of evidence for his existence. But it doesn’t matter because what’s important is what Socrates said – if Plato made him up, which some have suggested, it wouldn’t change the fact that the ideas attributed to him still exist, and that’s all that matters.

With someone like Jesus, the case is entirely different because what matters is that he existed and did the miraculous things claimed in a bunch of stories written down from oral tradition by followers of followers of followers of followers.

For nearly 20 centuries, the Church’s teachings have been under attack. None of these attacks have shown any error.

Having a consistent story tells us nothing about whether or not that story comes from a supernatural source.

 

[AntiTheist]

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?

Beings that exist are beings that manifest in a detectable way. If a being exists but it does not manifest in a way that is detectable, then it is indistinguishable from a being that does not exist, and we can ignore it.

If you claim that something exists outside of the minds of people, then we should be able to detect it through data drawn from the world outside of the mind.

Do you doubt that certain human beings in history were personal witnesses of events of supernatural origin, events not subject to scientific study?

Certainly, there have been people who have seen things that they have not been able to explain or that they have attributed to magic. I don’t think there’s any reason to suppose that those people were correct.

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?

It doesn’t work that way. You can’t cherry-pick a handful of supposed supernatural events that suit you and say, “why don’t you believe in these ones?” There are hundreds and thousands of supernatural claims spanning all religions and times, none of which I accept. There are hundreds and thousands of wild claims: psychic powers, gods manifesting, Hindu saints using magical power, occult teachers making magic happen, ghosts, leprechauns, UFO abductions, premonitions, ESP, the list goes on and on and on and on.

I don’t believe that any of those things are real because none of them have met the burden of proof for their claims. They’re all based on anecdotes and personal feelings, and that’s not evidence of the objective existence of any of those phenomena.

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?

Those “saints” are extreme manifestations of what seems to be an ubiquitous human experience: millions of religious believers – of all kinds of religions – report feeling the “presence” of various supernatural entities during rites of worship. That’s evidence of something: it’s evidence that humans have a tendency to have “spiritual” feelings. But those internal feelings can’t be evidence of external claims. You can’t argue, “I feel goosebumps; therefore, there are supernatural beings.” It doesn’t work that way.

 

[Incompertus_Vir]

Here’s an analogy, it’s a fact that Physics exists (if you don’t believe it go jump off of anything and tell me if gravity doesn’t work). Just because Physics exists doesn’t mean anything will be able to understand it, despite it’s daily manifestations through cars, planes, trains, people falling, etc. etc. For example, you can’t teach a dog Physics. Just because the dog is unable to interpret the daily signs of physics all around it everyday of its life doesn’t mean that Physics doesn’t exist. Like so, God’s manifestations in our life are sensed, yet uninterpretable by our human minds, just because we can’t perceive and have “empirical” evidence of God doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. Proof that God exists could be staring you in the face as could a physics book lie open(Doggy-translated mind you) in front of a dog and yet neither could the you interpret God’s manifestations nor could that or any dog understand gravitational acceleration is equal to about 9.81 meters per second squared, the net force is equal to mass times net acceleration(Newton’s Second Law), etc.(and that’s very basic Physics)

There’s a reason God told us not to test him, that Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. He knows that even if we see we cannot interpret, even if we try to test Him there’s naught but negative outcomes, if you succeed, you just tested and disobeyed an all powerful being, and if you don’t you’re not any worse off(given that if you’re testing Him you don’t exactly believe in Him) He knows that eventually after all our questioning and doubting about His existence we will come full circle to YOU CAN’T TEST GOD, so He saves you the trouble and tells you not to do it.

As to why we should choose Christianity and not any other religion, Most other Religions( I didn’t say all) have a shortened or modified version of the ROMAN CATHOLIC Bible, will the Real Slim Shady please stand up! That does away with I don’t know how many religions, and for the other ones well I can’t say, I’m not an expert on all known religions and if one of them appeals to you compare their moral teachings with those of the Catholic Church, if that particular belief system still appeals to you then May God Bless you and may you find your way to Him…I’ll tell you what, you go ahead and test God (I’m trying not to laugh) but given that you want a test, and a good test would be a controlled experiment with a single dependent variable and an independent variable and constants/controls well, uh, how are you going to test only one thing if you don’t know anything about what your testing? Go ahead and read up a nice large bit on God (Bible’s a good place to start) Pray (just in case He exists) that you may interpret correctly the message He’s trying to portray through His written word (if I may call it that without an argument of validity arising) and if after all that you STILL feel like testing Him, Good luck and I’ll make sure to Pray for you.

 

[AntiTheist]

There’s a reason God told us not to test him, that Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

But this thread is asking why you believe. In your post, you’re basically admitting that you don’t have a good reason to believe.

Faith is believing things for which you don’t have sufficient evidence (if you had sufficient evidence, you couldn’t call it “faith,” now could you?). I don’t think that this is a smart way to draw conclusions. Conclusions need to be based one evidence.

You can’t start from a conclusion that you want to be true and work backward from it, trying to use every justification you can to make it seem reasonable. You start from the evidence that you actually do have, and you figure out what exactly the evidence does justify.

 

[LilyM]

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?

Love and hate can’t be proven by science either, and yet they are real. Science is only ONE subbranch of empirical knowledge. Direct experience - which is where we get our knowledge of the abstract things like love or hate - is every bit as much empirical evidence.

 

[tonyrey]

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

1. There is more direct, convincing and coercive evidence than empirical evidence: our intangible thoughts, feelings, sensations and decisions.
2. The contents of our mind are our primary data and the existence of our mind is our sole certainty.
3. The success of science is adequate evidence of the power of the mind and the existence of other minds.
4. The existence of one Supreme Mind is the simplest and most adequate explanation of the existence of minds.

 

[Incompertus_Vir]

@ Antitheist

If you want to know why I believe it’s because I went through most of my life wondering, “What the heck am I doing here?” and then I began to notice that when I did bad things, bad things would also happen to me, and that when I did good things, bad things would still happen to me(not exactly karma as I thought of it) except that when these bad things happened to me I was able to resolve them or weather them through without it being detrimental to my mental state, but instead I became stronger(this only happened when I was good, when I was bad and bad things happened to me I felt like a whipped dog) so I began to get closer to my religion and all questions I’ve had have been satisfactorily answered through Church teachings, until eventually I could FEEL God, call me crazy but I can. Anyway, doubt that helped you much but just so you wouldn’t call me on a point I didn’t mention because I thought it insignificant.

As to I’m basically admitting I don’t have a reason to believe, no, I don’t. Not one that you would take as valid. It’s like trying to explain the color red to a person whose been blind their whole life, how would you describe the color red to that person? So my reasons for believing in God are the color red and you, analogously speaking, have never been able to see.

“Faith is believing things for which you don’t have sufficient evidence (if you had sufficient evidence, you couldn’t call it “faith,” now could you?). I don’t think that this is a smart way to draw conclusions. Conclusions need to be based one evidence.” This you stated, take note of the highlighted part and know that personal belief is often a poor substitute for the truth. Due to that piece of philosophy, tell me why it isn’t.

“You can’t start from a conclusion that you want to be true and work backward from it, trying to use every justification you can to make it seem reasonable. You start from the evidence that you actually do have, and you figure out what exactly the evidence does justify.” (This quote is basically a rephrasing of your quote above) I CAN start from a conclusion and work backward because, uh, I believe I just did (don’t mind that, just a joke) (However the argument you present here is one that two of the greatest philosophical minds debated upon, Plato and Socrates, Socrates believed one should find a big idea and then find evidence to support it, while Plato believed that one should collect much evidence and then come up with a big idea. I don’t believe either convinced the other. That was just some background that came to mind.) Both manners of reasoning have thier pros and cons, so it would just be a matter of preference to which one is used, I personally, would use either or depending on the situation and which would most adequately serve my purpose.

 

[aperture]

Love and hate can’t be proven by science either, and yet they are real. Science is only ONE subbranch of empirical knowledge. Direct experience - which is where we get our knowledge of the abstract things like love or hate - is every bit as much empirical evidence.

This depends on what you mean by “science can’t prove love/hate”. Do you mean that science cannot prove that love is different than hate, i.e. that science cannot show that a person experiencing love does something different than a person experiencing hate? Because that is, of course, untrue.

 

[aperture]

“You can’t start from a conclusion that you want to be true and work backward from it, trying to use every justification you can to make it seem reasonable. You start from the evidence that you actually do have, and you figure out what exactly the evidence does justify.” (This quote is basically a rephrasing of your quote above) I CAN start from a conclusion and work backward because, uh, I believe I just did (don’t mind that, just a joke) (However the argument you present here is one that two of the greatest philosophical minds debated upon, Plato and Socrates, Socrates believed one should find a big idea and then find evidence to support it, while Plato believed that one should collect much evidence and then come up with a big idea. I don’t believe either convinced the other. That was just some background that came to mind.) Both manners of reasoning have thier pros and cons, so it would just be a matter of preference to which one is used, I personally, would use either or depending on the situation and which would most adequately serve my purpose.

The second manner of reasoning (conclusion first, reasoning follows) seems to be a lot more susceptible to error and wild-goose-chases than the first. I’m not saying that it has no place in the world (Ramanujan, Indian mathematical genius, was famous for similar leaps of intuition, and I don’t think any mathematical person will tell you he was anything other than a top-class thinker), but it does make it much easier to err.

 

[AntiTheist]

Love and hate can’t be proven by science either, and yet they are real. Science is only ONE subbranch of empirical knowledge. Direct experience - which is where we get our knowledge of the abstract things like love or hate - is every bit as much empirical evidence.

Absolutely. I don’t need to do a scientific experiment to support the claim “I feel love right now.” For that claim, my personal observation of my emotional state is more than sufficient – because the claim is about my internal state.

If, however, I start making claims about the world outside of my mind, I need to support it with evidence from the world outside of my mind. Once again, if my claim is that there is a conspiracy against me, no amount of observation of my internal feelings could ever possibly support that claim. Similarly, if my claim is that a discarnate intelligence exists and intervenes in the world, no amount of observation of my internal feelings could ever possibly support that claim.

Incompertus Vir:

until eventually I could FEEL God

As I explain above, I don’t doubt that you feel a god – just as some people feel that there’s a conspiracy against them – I simply doubt whether feelings are a reliable guide to the world outside of your head when there is no other corroborating evidence.

As to I’m basically admitting I don’t have a reason to believe, no, I don’t. Not one that you would take as valid. It’s like trying to explain the color red to a person whose been blind their whole life, how would you describe the color red to that person? So my reasons for believing in God are the color red and you, analogously speaking, have never been able to see.

Well, as it turns out, you actually can demonstrate that color exists to a colorblind person. How? Well since your claim is one about the external world (“color exists”), you should be able to provide him with evidence from the external world. For example: Paint five different boxes a different color. Put an object in the red box – then leave the room and let the colorblind person re-arrange the boxes in a new order – then come back into the room and immediately point out which box the object is in. Open the box and show him that you were right.

If you could do that over and over and over again, every single time without fail (which you obviously could), then the colorblind person would know beyond any doubt that there is something real at work that you are calling “color.” The colorblind person wouldn’t know exactly what red looked like, but you would have demonstrated to him that this thing exists – because, like all things that exist, color has demonstrable effects on the world.

But of course, not only would any attempts to “test” god claims in this way fail miserably, Christians (at least) have an already-made out: they’re not even allowed to test their god and check to see whether or not their “feelings” actually match reality.

EDIT: Oops, I just saw that you wrote “blind” person, not “colorblind” person. While I think “colorblind” actually works better with the analogy, my point still stands: you could design similar kinds of experiments to demonstrate to a blind person that there is something to the concept that we call “color.”

 

[LilyM]

Absolutely. I don’t need to do a scientific experiment to support the claim “I feel love right now.” For that claim, my personal observation of my emotional state is more than sufficient – because the claim is about my internal state.

If, however, I start making claims about the world outside of my mind, I need to support it with evidence from the world outside of my mind. Once again, if my claim is that there is a conspiracy against me, no amount of observation of my internal feelings could ever possibly support that claim. Similarly, if my claim is that a discarnate intelligence exists and intervenes in the world, no amount of observation of my internal feelings could ever possibly support that claim.

The claim ‘Picasso’s painting Guernica is a great work of artistic genius’ is also a claim about the outside world. One for which we have no empirical evidence at all. What we have is a lot of opinion, by those who have written or spoken of the work, that is in pretty consistent agreement on the matter.

That we might have the VERY occasional goofball who says ‘meh, I hate it’ doesn’t change the fact that it IS a work of artistic genius. It just makes it a work whose genius not everyone appreciates.

 

[inocente]

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!

I don’t think you would though. God would see through your ploy and, just to irritate you, not answer the prayers. God chooses whether to answer prayers, and He doesn’t seem to like being tested.

 

[inocente]

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

That’s easy - why not believe in one God if no empirical evidence denies God’s existence?

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

Apart from it being true , all our traditions are in Christianity, and it has served us well. The Church may gradually be losing some relevance here in Spain, but go anywhere in Holy Week and you’ll find towns where more people process the Virgin around the streets than there are spectators. They may wear their faith lightly, but they remain Christians.

I posted this on another thread the other day. Marvin, forever complaining and now blind and near death, is read God’s Final Message To His Creation (“We are sorry for the inconvenience”)

“I think”, he murmured at last, from deep within his corroding rattling thorax, “I feel good about it”.

The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.

So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams

Nice bit of poetry - Marvin was redeemed, he saw the Light just before the lights went out in his eyes. Even Douglas Adams the atheist could not get away from Christianity.

 

[aperture]

That’s easy - why not believe in one God if no empirical evidence denies God’s existence?

Because disproving something is quite difficult. Why not believe in Thor if no empirical evidence denies Thor’s existence? Vishnu? Allah?

I posted this on another thread the other day. Marvin, forever complaining and now blind and near death, is read God’s Final Message To His Creation (“We are sorry for the inconvenience”)

Nice bit of poetry - Marvin was redeemed, he saw the Light just before the lights went out in his eyes. Even Douglas Adams the atheist could not get away from Christianity.

I think it’s a pretty big stretch to read this as Marvin’s conversion to Christianity. I’ve read that series (and loved it, for the record) and always saw it as a testament to Marvin’s pessimistic nature that the only thing he would appreciate is God basically saying that life sucks. In other words, validation of Marvin’s life philosophy. If anything, it’s Adams criticizing religion, I think. Wasn’t he an atheist until he died?

 

[MindOverMatter2]

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?

Gods existence is more certain then any scientific theory. Knowledge of Gods existence is metaphysical, and metaphysical knowledge is certain knowledge. Scientific knowledge is highly probable; but it is not certain knowledge.

 

[AntiTheist]

The claim ‘Picasso’s painting Guernica is a great work of artistic genius’ is also a claim about the outside world. One for which we have no empirical evidence at all. What we have is a lot of opinion, by those who have written or spoken of the work, that is in pretty consistent agreement on the matter.

 

[stringbeanduck]

If there be no God, how is that we found ourselves in midst of a world that contains all the materials and conditions to sustain not only life, but the human race with all its intelligence? Why is it that we, and only we, have risen up above all other life forms to rule this planet to the point where we could even destroy many times over?

Personally I just can’t see how we can just wind up like this. Everything has been known to have a beginning. However, physically, nothing can’t create something. So by logic, in order to end up where we are something must have the supernatural ability to create the universe and all it entails out of nothing.

 

[AntiTheist]

Personally I just can’t see how we can just wind up like this [without there being a god].

This is what’s called an “argument from ignorance,” a classic logical fallacy. If you don’t know the answer to a question, that’s not evidence that claim X is true.

Now, as it so happens, there are some very good answers to the question of exactly how it is that the diversity of life developed on this particular planet. We don’t know everything, but we know quite a bit. But even if we didn’t have any answers at all, that wouldn’t be justification for claiming that a supernatural being did it.

Everything has been known to have a beginning. However, physically, nothing can’t create something. So by logic, in order to end up where we are something must have the supernatural ability to create the universe and all it entails out of nothing.

Well, there are quite a few assumptions in there.

Briefly, there are only two options for origins: either there was an infinite chain of causes – which makes no sense to our minds – or something always existed, without needing a cause – which also makes no sense to our minds. If something always existed, we have no way of knowing whether it was a supernatural intelligent being or the universe itself in some form or another (there was, after all, “stuff” that existed before the Big Bang…no one knows what its origin was or whether or not it always existed).

The fact is that there is no reason to suppose that a supernatural being existed before the Big Bang – in fact, all things being equal, it just adds another unneeded assumption to a subject that we don’t have a good answer to.

And, to resume the theme of my post, not having an answer to a question cannot logically be evidence for “Claim X is true!”

 

[Windfish]

Man, I sat down and really thought about this thread’s question. I realized that I could write for the rest of my life and not be done answering it.

God, in principle, cannot be proven empirically, at least not directly. As others have said, though, there are many things in life that cannot be directly proven that are, nevertheless, real. The same is true of God.

Really, though, what it comes down to is the person of Jesus Christ. Such a badass, such a beautiful badass. Man, I love Him.

 

[inocente]

Because disproving something is quite difficult. Why not believe in Thor if no empirical evidence denies Thor’s existence? Vishnu? Allah?

Nothing needs to be disproved. The atheist position is no better than any other in the absence of empirical evidence.

Wasn’t he an atheist until he died?

Yes, I mentioned that Adams was an atheist, and the proof is that for him the lights in Marvin’s eyes went out for ever. Remember also that God had previously disappeared in a puff of His own logic after thinking up a logical disproof for His own existence.

Adams was also English, now one of the most secular societies in Europe, yet he still ended his four-book trilogy with a metaphor based in Christianity. Atheists in Western societies are steeped in a Christian heritage they cannot avoid.

Societies that try to make a complete break with religion, like the USSR, don’t seem to be able to cut it without inventing a substitute religion, e.g. around a dictator. For some reason not yet entirely clear we seem to be made to have faith, whether it is monotheistic or whatever.