A
allenirvan
Guest
Your words are beautiful, humble, honest, and enriching. Thank You
- Status
L
Luke_K
Guest
No. I provided a couple reasons. If someone is a stringent believer in the scientific method then they should test Christianity (Catholicism) wholeheartedly and see if its claims hold up- find out if Jesus really is the way, the truth, and the life.
From my experience, it’s been more reliable and truthful than any lab experiment I’ve done in school so far.
A
AntiTheist
Guest
I guess you missed all that stuff about data drawn from inside your head – like, your subjective emotions and experiences – not being sufficient to justify claims about the world outside of your head.If someone is a stringent believer in the scientific method then they should test Christianity (Catholicism) wholeheartedly and see if its claims hold up- find out if Jesus really is the way, the truth, and the life.
From my experience, it’s been more reliable and truthful than any lab experiment I’ve done in school so far.
Do you not consider it important to address that point?
A
AntiTheist
Guest
Hi Inocente,
I appreciate your thoughtful post and the friendly manner in which it is offered.
Your basic approach is a relatively simple one: in areas where there is insufficient evidence, you are suggesting that we might as well choose to believe whatever claim produces the best results: that is, makes us happier, gives us a sense of meaning, produces a “better” society (however you happen to be measuring that…for instance, is a “better” society one that gives more rights to women or one that strictly enforces patriarchal sexual norms under the threat of death?), etc., etc.
In the first place, we’ve veered off the subject of the thread – whether or not there’s any empirical evidence for god claims – which, if I’m reading you correctly, you seem to be conceding that there’s not any such evidence. We’ve instead wandered into the land of consequentialism. Do we or do we not happen to like certain implications of certain beliefs?
In the second place, I think that accepting claims simply because we like them is bad policy, on a number of levels:
–It smacks of special pleading, once again. You wouldn’t suggest that people might as well accept other claims for which there is no evidence just because they might like them: UFO abductions, psychic powers, ghosts, goblins, etc.
–Any benefits granted by accepting these claims are, in my estimation, outweighed by the benefits of accepting reality. For example, I admit that in some situations it can be beneficial to believe that there is a life after death – and indeed, I’d have no qualms lying to a dying child and telling him that he will live in a happy paradise with his family for all of eternity – but I think this benefit is outweighed by the benefits of facing up to reality: by acknolweding that there is no evidence that I will continue to exist after my death, I can value this life – the one and only life I will ever have – as infinitely precious and important to me. That value can become my basis for wanting to live a full, happy life and to build strong relationships with others that I will cherish all the more for their fleeting and transitory nature.
– I think that any societal benefits produced by religions can be produced just as well by secular means, making it unnecessary to accept religious claims simply to gain those benefits. For example, there are obviously secular means of attaining community, meaning, support, charity, and anything else you might happen to value.
In addition, your posts still continue to conflate value judgments and fact judgments. You cite the Hopi value that “all is sacred” and you point to their “inner conviction” as their evidence: well, of course, an inner conviction can serve as evidence of a value judgment. My inner conviction that ice cream tastes good is adequate evidence for my value-claim “Ice cream tastes good.” My inner conviction that I want to help someone up when they fall down supports my value judgment “It’s good to help people up” (though I actually don’t like to speak of behavior in terms of values). But again – and I’m probably sounding like a broken record here – inner conviction carries no weight when evaluating fact claims about the world outside of my head.
You seem to think that the only way we can have a society that values being nice to people and treating people decently is if we also believe specific god-claims. This is simply untrue. I don’t stop valuing treating people nicely (and being treated nicely in return) simply because I recognize that there is no evidence for any gods.
Stephendaniel89:
I would submit for your consideration that believing things for reasons unknown to you – or for reasons having to do with a purely subjective emotional response – is, in the long run, a bad thing for you.
See my post above to inocente for more on this.
I appreciate your thoughtful post and the friendly manner in which it is offered.
Your basic approach is a relatively simple one: in areas where there is insufficient evidence, you are suggesting that we might as well choose to believe whatever claim produces the best results: that is, makes us happier, gives us a sense of meaning, produces a “better” society (however you happen to be measuring that…for instance, is a “better” society one that gives more rights to women or one that strictly enforces patriarchal sexual norms under the threat of death?), etc., etc.
In the first place, we’ve veered off the subject of the thread – whether or not there’s any empirical evidence for god claims – which, if I’m reading you correctly, you seem to be conceding that there’s not any such evidence. We’ve instead wandered into the land of consequentialism. Do we or do we not happen to like certain implications of certain beliefs?
In the second place, I think that accepting claims simply because we like them is bad policy, on a number of levels:
–It smacks of special pleading, once again. You wouldn’t suggest that people might as well accept other claims for which there is no evidence just because they might like them: UFO abductions, psychic powers, ghosts, goblins, etc.
–Any benefits granted by accepting these claims are, in my estimation, outweighed by the benefits of accepting reality. For example, I admit that in some situations it can be beneficial to believe that there is a life after death – and indeed, I’d have no qualms lying to a dying child and telling him that he will live in a happy paradise with his family for all of eternity – but I think this benefit is outweighed by the benefits of facing up to reality: by acknolweding that there is no evidence that I will continue to exist after my death, I can value this life – the one and only life I will ever have – as infinitely precious and important to me. That value can become my basis for wanting to live a full, happy life and to build strong relationships with others that I will cherish all the more for their fleeting and transitory nature.
– I think that any societal benefits produced by religions can be produced just as well by secular means, making it unnecessary to accept religious claims simply to gain those benefits. For example, there are obviously secular means of attaining community, meaning, support, charity, and anything else you might happen to value.
In addition, your posts still continue to conflate value judgments and fact judgments. You cite the Hopi value that “all is sacred” and you point to their “inner conviction” as their evidence: well, of course, an inner conviction can serve as evidence of a value judgment. My inner conviction that ice cream tastes good is adequate evidence for my value-claim “Ice cream tastes good.” My inner conviction that I want to help someone up when they fall down supports my value judgment “It’s good to help people up” (though I actually don’t like to speak of behavior in terms of values). But again – and I’m probably sounding like a broken record here – inner conviction carries no weight when evaluating fact claims about the world outside of my head.
You seem to think that the only way we can have a society that values being nice to people and treating people decently is if we also believe specific god-claims. This is simply untrue. I don’t stop valuing treating people nicely (and being treated nicely in return) simply because I recognize that there is no evidence for any gods.
Stephendaniel89:
Well, thanks for the kind words, Stephen (at least, I’m going to take them as a compliment). The image of the mirror reminds me of the Buddhist metaphor that meditation practice is like polishing the mirror of the self. Of course, as a cute side note, the Zen correction to that metaphor is that the ultimate realization is that there is no mirror to polish.
Your response is honest, which is a good start.
I would submit for your consideration that believing things for reasons unknown to you – or for reasons having to do with a purely subjective emotional response – is, in the long run, a bad thing for you.
See my post above to inocente for more on this.
L
Luke_K
Guest
What data isn’t drawn from inside your head? Can you give an example of an objective observation of the outside world by your senses that wasn’t modified, analyzed, and synthesized by your brain before it came into your conscious awareness? That’s not even to mention much more abstract concepts like “this event occurred when this happened, so in the future it will happen that way again.” That idea was formed in your brain before you adopted it to further investigate the world.
Ask yourself how you *know *when you’ve acquired a truth statement about reality. Ask yourself how you know when you’ve acquired the correct method for acquiring truth statements about reality. The only way I know of is a subjective feeling of “Aha!” or “Eureka!” when a collection of thoughts and experiences click together in my brain. But you know what? That has steered me wrong many times.
Besides, if you wish to take a completely materialistic approach to our humanity, then how do you know that your collection of blind chemicals called a “brain” isn’t set up to provide wrong answers? One can easily write a computer program to output “5” whenever you (name removed by moderator)ut 2+2=.
What I’m asserting here is that I don’t think you’re being skeptical enough. You’re too trusting of human intelligence and how honest we are with ourselves and others.
A
allenirvan
Guest
You have posed this question to me personally in my own threads… Concerning this entire thread: I think its rather futile, foolish, and somewhat contradictory to resort to empirical evidence for an explanation for one’s belief in God. As AntiTheist pointed out, faith with proof isn’t faith anymore, it is acceptance of what is obvious and demonstrable. AntiTheist supposedly accepts the obvious demonstrable truth, bounded by the rules of logic and his acceptance of scientific conclusions as interpreted to him by those deemed qualified through peer review. AntiTheist, here’s my issue with atheism, speaking from my own experience as someone who was “on the fence” for years and occasionally still finds himself there: as a Christian or Theist or whatever you want to call it, I can and DO believe IN each and everything you believe IN (assuming you have no beliefs outside of science or the rules of logic), however, I also believe some additional things, such as Christianity, that you reject along with everything else religious or supernatural. This focus on disbelief and rejection of existing explanations for things that cannot be explained, the necessity to ignore the overwhelming probability that unexplainable, unmeasurable phenomena do happen, and the attitude that something is not worth believing if it cannot be proven and demonstrated: all these tenants of atheism continue to turn me away and back to God. It IS worth exploring yourself spiritually regardless of what approach you take.
OP you ask “why” with the admitted intent to produce a debate over the conclusions of empirical evidence concerning the existence of God when OBVIOUSLY the only conclusion possible from empirical evidence, when taken from a truly scientific and necessarily secular standpoint, is “N/A” or Not Applicable. The question is an undefined point, dividing by 0, not permitted within the scope of scientific research. Why ask? Is this purposefully for the mental exercise to overcome the “arguments” and non-sense of Kirk Cameron and his cohorts?
With each and every one of these threads I reach the same thought, that “New Atheism” is nothing more than another product of the protestant reformation: some group rejects the spiritual authority of Rome, now a few hundred years later yet another less organized group has splintered off of the protestant chaos and rejected all spiritual authority… an admittedly reasonable conclusion to the ridiculous anarchy and secularism the western world was subjected to by Luther - to reject those “authorities” who never possessed such status. AntiTheist, it seems to me that your real issue is with them, your logic and pleas to science I cannot argue with.
Just for the record, AntiTheist, I do want to say that you have done a superb job of presenting your arguments.
Just wanted to say that my stance is that we’re all spinning our wheels on this subject.
C
CWBetts
Guest
To say that Empirical evidence is the only sort of evidence through which knowledge can be attained is to espouse moral relativism. This view is the most arrogant of all, that man is the measure of all things. The “New Atheism” touts this as something new, but is actually very old. It is an idea that came from pre-Socratic thought, and was virtually plagiarized by soulless reptiles like Kant.
L
Luke_K
Guest
Here’s a relevant, well-presented essay from This Rock on the subject at hand: catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0012fea1.asp
A
AntiTheist
Guest
I was wondering when I was going to start getting responses from the “The Matrix might be real!” crowd.
For example, my completely subjective experience reveals the fact that in my head, I feel hungry right now.
As another example, my completely subjective experience – that is, my looking out the window and then sitting back down – reveals the fact that my car is parked outside.
And yet, we can correctly classify one type of evidence as coming from inside my head (dealing with things that pertain only to me and cannot be verified by anyone else) and the other as evidence coming from the world outside of our heads (dealing with things that others can also observe and verify).
To put it another way, our experiences have enabled us to build up a relatively accurate model of reality that we are constantly refining – a model that relies on the distinction between “that which is in our heads” and “that which is outside of our heads.” I feel that there is adequate evidence that the world around me exists independently of my thoughts about it, and I would suggest that anyone who does not think so has not had adequate experience of the world.
Within the system of logic and reason that we’ve constructed – which is a system designed to evaluate whether or not propositions are supported by evidence and therefore likely to be true, that is to say, consistent with the reality we can detect – evidence that comes from the world inside our heads cannot verify claims made about the world outside of our heads.
If you think that something is “real” or that a claim is “true” and yet it has no measurable effect on the reality that we’re capable of detecting and absolutely no evidence going for it…how is it any different than something that doesn’t exist?
I’m sorry, but I have nothing but contempt for that position, which ultimately leads us to the position that we can’t know anything.
EDIT: I’ll respond to the other posts in this thread later.
Obviously, all experience is subjective. When I speak of “evidence from the world outside of my head” versus “evidence from the world inside of my head” I’m drawing a distinction between kinds of evidence that my completely subjective experience reveals. The former kind of evidence is available only to me; the latter kind is available to any independent investigator.
For example, my completely subjective experience reveals the fact that in my head, I feel hungry right now.
As another example, my completely subjective experience – that is, my looking out the window and then sitting back down – reveals the fact that my car is parked outside.
And yet, we can correctly classify one type of evidence as coming from inside my head (dealing with things that pertain only to me and cannot be verified by anyone else) and the other as evidence coming from the world outside of our heads (dealing with things that others can also observe and verify).
To put it another way, our experiences have enabled us to build up a relatively accurate model of reality that we are constantly refining – a model that relies on the distinction between “that which is in our heads” and “that which is outside of our heads.” I feel that there is adequate evidence that the world around me exists independently of my thoughts about it, and I would suggest that anyone who does not think so has not had adequate experience of the world.
Within the system of logic and reason that we’ve constructed – which is a system designed to evaluate whether or not propositions are supported by evidence and therefore likely to be true, that is to say, consistent with the reality we can detect – evidence that comes from the world inside our heads cannot verify claims made about the world outside of our heads.
Just because my brain modifies my impression that a car is outside doesn’t mean that I don’t have good evidence that there’s a car outside. You’re letting yourself get confused by your Matrix philosophy.
Well, it’s a subjective feeling produced by observing that there is sufficient evidence for the claim in question. And of course it’s not perfect – nothing is perfect, but relying on evidence is consistently reliable when you have enough evidence and use reason properly. Obviously, when you acquire more evidence or when you figure out that you have used reason improperly, you have to adjust your conclusions. But that doesn’t mean we should abandon using evidence and reason – to the contrary, evidence and reason are the only ways of coming to consistently reliable and accurate conclusions about reality.
Well, “right” in this instance means “consistent with the reality we’re capable of detecting.” And obviously, having brains that are capable of judging whether claims are consistent with the reality that we’re capable of detecting provides a very strong survival advantage.
If you think that something is “real” or that a claim is “true” and yet it has no measurable effect on the reality that we’re capable of detecting and absolutely no evidence going for it…how is it any different than something that doesn’t exist?
And what I’m asserting here is that you’re not being skeptical enough of your flight-of-fancy “maybe the Matrix is real!” philosophy.
I’m sorry, but I have nothing but contempt for that position, which ultimately leads us to the position that we can’t know anything.
EDIT: I’ll respond to the other posts in this thread later.
A
AntiTheist
Guest
Minor quibble: none of those things are you mentioned are tenets of atheism (they’re certainly not tenants of atheism). Atheism doesn’t have tenets because it’s not a worldview or a religion – it’s a position one particular question (“Are there gods?”).
Those things you listed might be considered tenets of skepticism (of which I consider atheism a necessary conclusion and subset), except that I do not think that they are correct as stated.
I will proceed to correct them:
“This focus on disbelief and rejection of existing explanations for things that cannot be explained.” Correction: Skepticism does not accept an explanation for something unless there is evidence that supports the explanation. In the absence of evidence – when there is something that cannot be explained – the correct answer is always “I don’t know.”
“the necessity to ignore the overwhelming probability that unexplainable, unmeasurable phenomena do happen.” Correction: I think just about everyone who is honest admits that there are all kinds of things that happen that we do not yet have an adequate explanation for or that there are things out there that we do not yet have the ability to measure. But we cannot accept an explanation or believe in any of those claims until we have good evidence and reason to do so.
EDIT: Thinking this over, I’ve decided that your assertions here are contradictory. If something is “unexplainable,” then you cannot have explanation for it – you can’t assert a supernatural explanation for it. If you assert a supernatural explanation for something, you are saying that it is in fact explainable, and you’d have to present evidence that supports your explanation.
“the attitude that something is not worth believing if it cannot be proven and demonstrated.” Correction: Something that has no evidence going for it is indistinguishable from something that does not exist. It might be “worth” believing something like that if you think it will benefit you (though I think that accepting reality is almost always better in the long term…see my response to inocente above), but we are not logically justified in accepting a claim for which there is no evidence.
I’m all in favor of people exploring themselves. Just because we recognize that there’s no evidence that any gods exist is no reason to stop exploring yourself and learning things about your own psychology.
This is special pleading. You presumably don’t believe in fairies, Bigfoot, psychic powers, Hank the invisible and incorporeal gremlin, and lots of other things that supposedly science can’t confirm.
You can’t pick one extraordinary claim that you happen to like and say, “Well, there’s no evidence for it, but I’ll still believe it any way.” You’re not being consistent.
Well, I don’t think that there is such a thing as “spiritual authority” – at least in the sense that you mean it. Feel free to present evidence for it, though.
And thanks for you kind words.
CWBetts:
Then kindly present some other kind of evidence that permits knowledge of the world outside of our heads, and show us how you know that the conclusions that it suggests are accurate.
As I’ve already explained, my observation of my inner, subjective emotional state is indeed evidence that I can use to justify claims about my subjective state (“I feel happy”). But evidence drawn from the world outside of my head is the only way I can come to reliable conclusions about the world outside of my head.
M
Marc_Anthony
Guest
With all due respect, I’m not sure how this makes sense. Moral relativism is completely seperate from asking for empirical evidence proving God’s existence.
I’ll be honest here-it seems as if nobody’s given a particularly good answer so far.
Why do I believe in God?
Well, here we go.
I suppose this is a proof ,though I never thought of it that way because I never thought of it in as linear a way as this.
- Everything physical exists
- Nothing physical is uncaused
- An actual infinity is logically absurd
- Therefore there must have been a first cause.
- We call this first cause God
A
AntiTheist
Guest
Well, ok, a few things here. First, an “actual infinity” – I assume that you’re talking about an infinite chain of causes – does not make sense to us. You’re absolutely right. But a thing that has always existed – whether an always-existing god or an always-existing ball of matter/energy that came before the Big Bang – doesn’t make any sense to us either. And the other option that I know of – that there’s some Quantum property that allows particles to be generated from nothing – also doesn’t make sense to us.
So right from the beginning, we’re up against it with a big, fat “I don’t know.”
Things get worse when we realize that the laws of physics – that is, our descriptions of the way that matter behaves – only apply to the universe that exists after the Big Bang. We don’t know enough about what came before the Big Bang (or even if before the Big Bang makes any sense) to say anything conclusively. How do we know that causality even functioned then the way that it does now? How can you have causality when it’s possible that time didn’t exist yet?
And even if you could demonstrate that there had to be a “first cause,” there’s nothing that indicates that this “first cause” was intelligent, was a god (what if the first cause is nothing more than some property of potentiality, a law of the pre-universe?), or even still exists.
My vote is still for “I don’t know.”
A
allenirvan
Guest
Please present evidence for items 2-5.
D
davidv
Guest
I don’t answer this way, because I don’t need to depend on my own intellect and knowledge to answer the question. God revealed himself to mankind in a far more meaningful manner than in some logic sylogism. So I can answer, God exists.
M
Marc_Anthony
Guest
I opened up a can of worms didn’t I?
“First, an “actual infinity” – I assume that you’re talking about an infinite chain of causes – does not make sense to us. You’re absolutely right.”
I didn’t say it didn’t make sense “to us”, I say it’s logically impossible. Can’t exist.
Douglas Adams pointed out the absurdity of an actual infinity (he was an atheist, BTW, and a hardcore one). Any number at all, since it’s less than infinity, in comparison to infinity might as well be zero. Ridiculous.
“But a thing that has always existed – whether an always-existing god or an always-existing ball of matter/energy that came before the Big Bang – doesn’t make any sense to us either.”
This is why I posit that something outside of physics-something metaphysical-must have created us.
If there’s no actual infinity, there must have been a first cause. God is the ifrst cause.
M
Marc_Anthony
Guest
Tell us what convinced you then, please. That’s the point of this thread.
L
Luke_K
Guest
I don’t believe we live in the matrix. I believe in the necessity of certain unobservable truths.
It’s nice to know that you at least believe in a “self” that is immaterial, for you say that there is such a thing as a completely subjective experience. Apparently since no one else can by ANY means empirically analyze and explain your subjective experiences, then there exists within you an inalienable, transcendental self! You’re closer to Christian philosophy than you think.
Since your inner thoughts cannot be verified by anyone else, that must mean you do not have self-consciousness, or at least there is no reason for me to believe that you do. It seems that your philosophy leads to the conclusion that I should have no regrets if I set out to make your life miserable or end it completely, because I have no reason to believe that you are even aware you exist.
I don’t know what that evidence could be. After all, evidence is just an observation until a rational being draws a conclusion from it. You can show me piles of observations on the motions of the planets, but in order for that to mean anything you have to put it into a philosophical system that asserts that past successful predictions indicate reliable future ones, among other things.
How was that system of logic and reason constructed? Did you form a hypothesis, isolate the variables, and test it? If so, I’d like to see your research paper so I can peer-review it and test it myself.
It’s not a Matrix philosophy. It’s a philosophy that says total empiricism is irrational as a starting point for acquiring truth about the world.
This seems to be what your whole anti-faith hinges on, that there is absolutely zero evidence for God. I disagree, of course, and believe that the authors of the Bible were not making stuff up in their accounts of the Hebrews’ encounters with God and the life of Christ. I also know that in my own life by following the morality of Jesus and his Church I have experienced what Jesus said I would, and what other believers have said they have.
And of course your immediate counter-argument would be to list off a bunch of alleged magical phenomena and spiritual experiences claimed by other religions which I believe are false, and ask me how the evidence for them differs from Biblical miracles. I’m not in the position to do that, because I don’t have the knowledge or resources or quite frankly, the motivation to do so. All I really personally know is that Catholic theology makes the most comprehensive sense to me of the religions I’ve read about, and that my personal, subjective experiences support it.
Additionally, the properties of living systems in light of our understanding of physical laws has lead me to conclude that it is rational to believe in an intelligent creator.
EDIT I didn’t mean to act like I held that position, just that it seems your philosophical system does not hold up to that kind of skepticism. Do you agree that certain unobservable truth statements are required as a starting point for acquiring further knowledge?
Consider this quote from David Hume: “There can be no demonstrative arguments to prove that those instances of which we have had no experience resemble those of which we have had experience” (Treatise on Human Nature. 1:3:6).
C
CWBetts
Guest
If one relies on empirical evidence alone truth becomes subjective. If truth is subjective, then each person decides for himself what is and is not true, including morality. There are plenty of things we know to be true in all possible worlds. To only allow empirical evidence denies the possibility of a priori truth.
A
allenirvan
Guest
Additionally, to only allow empirical evidence denies the possibility of absolute truth. That is my greatest issue with Atheism, is that I have always believed in the existence of absolute truth, while the Atheist rejects the notion in favor of overwhelming evidence.
D
davidv
Guest
My being and the immense wonder in the world around me and trust in the people who taught me about God.
- Status