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What gives you the idea that a deity is real?

ratiocinator

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
leov

leov

Well-Known Member
ratiocinator said:
The idea that an "observation" in quantum mechanics has anything to do with conscious observation is not supported by evidence. It is one of many interpretations and it's much more popular with woo peddlers than actual scientists.
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Do you know why it is not?
maybe there is no 'objective' thing at all.
 
Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
Heyo said:
But we can agree that subjective experiences are not evidence in the hard sciences, right?
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The topic of religion is irrelevant to the hard sciences aside from the study of religious experience in biology and neuroscience. I have no idea why Western atheists wrongly insist on putting religion in some special category apart from all other subjective experience. I'm sure you don't ask for proof or evidence when someone says they love someone else or that they had a dream. You can't objectively measure those things, either.
 
paganprince

paganprince

cerridwen devotee
my deities don't have to be real for anybody else. i read about them, i study them, i experience them, i worship them, they're real for me. personally, i think that's the whole idea of religion - you can't prove it to anybody else. that's why you believe it.
 
Heyo

Heyo

Veteran Member
Saint Frankenstein said:
I have no idea why Western atheists wrongly insist on putting religion in some special category apart from all other subjective experience.
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It's because religious people sometimes make claims about the physicality of their gods. As long as you see religion as a subjective experience, there is no conflict. But when you claim to have physical evidence, then please show it.

Positive claims require positive evidence.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. - Carl Sagan
That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. - Christopher Hitchens
 
H

Hawkins

Well-Known Member
Thirza Fallen said:
When there is no physical evidence, what made you decide there is or are gods? Do you care about lack of proof? How do you experience this/these deity/deities?
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What makes you think that you ate anything today but a year ago, in the absence of any evidence?

Or do you have any evidence of the food contents you ever had in your 10,000 meals in your lifetime? So when you said that you had a big meal in last Christmas dinner, shall we take it with a grain of salt?

It's a testimony (from a supposed eyewitness account) where you may lie or tell the truth, it's unsupported by evidence. All we can examine is your credibility then choose to believe or reject. That's what it is.
 
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steveb1

steveb1

Member
Thirza Fallen said:
When there is no physical evidence, what made you decide there is or are gods? Do you care about lack of proof? How do you experience this/these deity/deities?
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Only materialists believe that nothing but matter exists. The only evidence they can accept has to be of objects and processes that are physical. However, by most definitions, God is not at all material. Therefore, materialism cannot address God as a non-material category, and cannot accept non-material evidence for God's existence.

"Show me your God" is therefore an inept demand, because God, as a non-material category, cannot be "shown" - that is, cannot be seen or perceived by the senses.

Obviously therefore, science cannot be used as a God-finding tool, since science deals only with matter, and God is spirit.

Neither is philosophy a competent tool in the God-quest, because as the late atheist social critic Gore Vidal wrote:

"God, or what have you, is not to be found at the far end of a syllogism, no matter how brilliantly phrased."

This expresses the simple fact that philosophy has been used both to "prove" and to "disprove" God.
It also expresses the idea that the kind of God found or rejected via philosophy will always only be an abstraction, of intellection, not of "existential" knowing.

The only other alternative that I'm aware of is the question of God not as an object of philosophy or science, but of experience - mystical experience, the experience of divine communion and divine union - i.e., of God as an inner experience of a living, transformative "Presence" in the soul (soul defined as our deepest subjectivity).

It is obvious that the God-experience as such is impossible to pull out of the personal psyche into the external world for public confirmation or de-confirmation. No one but the "seeker" him or herself can access the God-experience. No one can do it for them. It's a solitary venture.
So calls for "proof" of an entirely subjective experience are unskillful. The response from experiencers to non-experiencers can only be invitational - that is, to invite the questioner to duplicate whatever processes, if any, led the experiencer to the internal God-experience.

So in my view, the God-question can only be resolved through "the journey within" - and the solution has nothing to do with the category of "proof" in its common connotation of publicly-duplicated, quantifiable claims.
 
Windwalker

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
ChristineM said:
And the reason theists are theist is because they have a low or no threshold if what constitutes evidence
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Interesting. What evidence are you referring to that you believe all theists reject? Can you provide a brief list as to which evidences theists have a low tolerance for? Evolution? Many theists accept evolution as is. Do you have others?
 
Vinayaka

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
Thirza Fallen said:
When there is no physical evidence, what made you decide there is or are gods? Do you care about lack of proof? How do you experience this/these deity/deities?
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Personal experience, I don't care about lack of proof, feeling the energy from them.
 
ChristineM

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Windwalker said:
Interesting. What evidence are you referring to that you believe all theists reject? Can you provide a brief list as to which evidences theists have a low tolerance for? Evolution? Many theists accept evolution as is. Do you have others?
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I was actually being facetious in response to @leov s silly medical remark

Howrver

Far more than evolution, there is bucket loads of evidence for that so let's talk bible
'god exists because the bible says god exist and that is proof enough'. That sort of evidence

Or 'just look around, it is obvious that god made it'
 
Windwalker

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Thirza Fallen said:
When there is no physical evidence, what made you decide there is or are gods?
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If God is considered to be spiritual, then I don't think we should expect there to be a specific physical form. A belief in God would not be about physical evidence. It would be about spiritual evidence.

Thirza Fallen said:
Do you care about lack of proof?
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Experience is evidence. Proof is not an appropriate word, in either science or spirituality. "Proof" is perception. Perceptions change, and so does our ideas of what qualifies as "proof" right along with them. So in this sense, no I don't care about a lack of proof, because proof is a fallacy anyway. What I care about is does it withstand testings, in whatever type of form that testing appropriately takes.

Thirza Fallen said:
How do you experience this/these deity/deities?
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As All That Is. Essentially. Radiance, Infinity, Light, Life, Love, Beauty, Truth, Goodness, Freedom, Eternity. Life with the curtain drawn back.

What face we put upon this with the Gods we imagine, is just the Face we see to touch into that Infinite Openness we call God. Metaphors.
 
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Windwalker

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
ChristineM said:
I was actually being facetious in response to @leov s silly medical remark

Howrver

Far more than evolution, there is bucket loads of evidence for that so let's talk bible
'god exists because the bible says god exist and that is proof enough'. That sort of evidence

Or 'just look around, it is obvious that god made it'
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What I see is a criticism of those theists who are being premodern, pre-scientific, pre-rational. Yes, I see that too. That's no secret. However not all theists are premodern, pre-scientific, or prerational. I doubt any of all those things you see theists having a problem with, that they would have any problem with any of those themselves. In other words, they're just as rational as you and not living in denial of science and reason. Where do you place them?
 
oldbadger

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Thirza Fallen said:
When there is no physical evidence, what made you decide there is or are gods? Do you care about lack of proof? How do you experience this/these deity/deities?
Click to expand...
Ah.....
You got the first line wrong.
The only evidence that caused me to decide that there is a Deity is the physical evidence.

And it's getting even more exciting now that astronomers and physicists are considering why this Universe is misshapen in places, and with some galaxies moving out of their expected trajectories ..... this could mean that there is or are other Universes beyond ours and affecting ours.

God is Great. Truly.
But then, I'm a Deist.
 
ChristineM

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Windwalker said:
What I see is a criticism of those theists who are being premodern, pre-scientific, pre-rational. Yes, I see that too. That's no secret. However not all theists are premodern, pre-scientific, or prerational. I doubt any of all those things you see theists having a problem with, that they would have any problem with any of those themselves. In other words, they're just as rational as you and not living in denial of science and reason. Where do you place them?
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What i see is en example of a good number of theists (in this case christians) who refuse to even evaluate any evidence that contradicts what they have been told to believe about the bible. The evidence they accept is not even sketchy,

Whether they are pre anything i really dont know.

I know (and consider some my friends) theists, both Christian and Muslim who can rationalise their belief in god knowing that no evidence exists.

Including scientists who have a high threshold of evidence.
 
ChristineM

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
oldbadger said:
Ah.....
You got the first line wrong.
The only evidence that caused me to decide that there is a Deity is the physical evidence.

And it's getting even more exciting now that astronomers and physicists are considering why this Universe is misshapen in places, and with some galaxies moving out of their expected trajectories ..... this could mean that there is or are other Universes beyond ours and affecting ours.

God is Great. Truly.
But then, I'm a Deist.
Click to expand...


If you can find it take a look at Laura Mersini-Houghtons hypothesis on how the universe became. I favour it above the other hypothesis i know because it explains possible cause for 3 previously unexplainable phenomenon that can be observed in this universe. Including the uneven shape, great swathes of galaxies moving contrary to universal motion, and crucially, the bruising on the CMB.

Edit, found it
Birth of the Universe from the Multiverse
The full pdf download is linked top right of the page
 
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C

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
Hawkins said:
What makes you think that you ate anything today but a year ago, in the absence of any evidence?

Or do you have any evidence of the food contents you ever had in your 10,000 meals in your lifetime? So when you said that you had a big meal in last Christmas dinner, shall we take it with a grain of salt?

It's a testimony (from a supposed eyewitness account) where you may lie or tell the truth, it's unsupported by evidence. All we can examine is your credibility then choose to believe or reject. That's what it is.
Click to expand...
There are plenty of other factors to consider.
A) Is the claim important?
In this case it isn't. I don't much care what or how much you ate last December 25. As long as you aren't chronically hungry or something, it just doesn't matter.
B) Is the claim plausible?
In this case it is extremely plausible. Most people get together for a traditional Christmas feast, whatever is traditional for them. It isn't merely a possibility, it's the norm around here.

So, you could claim almost anything about what you ate last Christmas and I would believe you with no more evidence than your claim.

Start making claims about The Creator, objective morality, the afterlife, and such and the standards for evidence start going up rapidly.
Tom
 
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