Challenge to Theists: Prove Your God

[sayak83]

Not everything subjective is necessarily delusional, surely?

Conscious awareness is entirely subjective. Where would we be if all of it was delusional?
Sometimes people make no sense.
In fact when you look at it: Objective is nothing but a subclass of subjective experiences that cohere well with each other (rationally, experientially, instrumentally) so that an objective abstraction is possible.

 

[F1fan]

Personally I believe in God, so I do not see an option without a God who created our universe.

This illustrates how theists think and believe and debate. If you assume a God exists you are going to find a way to justify that belief, and it won't be due to evidence or reasoning. People want their MTV. In religion if you can imagine it, it can be real to you.

 

[rational experiences]

Higher than God an eternal being.

Living in the eternal form with its family as they communicated to each other. Why change was caused as variations has to exist to allow for change.

Even science knows without variations they never would have practiced science otherwise self would not be considered safe.

And self wasn't safe we got sacrificed.....as consciousness advised the variation of gods creation existing by a higher status was never any human liar

Everyday my life body changes so does the atmosphere.

I know the first two human parents died and so has billions of humans since. We are all born from human sex.

Straight away that information says no God. But it also allows for the creator of God to be spiritual.

As in one slight moment of a spiritual experience a memory of the eternal who released our parents from its body allowed me to know it was real.

Experience to be changed physically without my control. Without my reactive chemistry emotional. Instead I was changed personally just by seeing it.

Knowing a spirit loved me unconditionally was that it did not communicate to my mind that I was seen judged or notified as being less.

I was just totally loved.

Science however expressed unconditional egotism and hierarchy.

All the proof a human ever needed to say yes a spiritual being lived with the cause of creation.

A God without being a God.

 

[Spirit of Light]

This illustrates how theists think and believe and debate. If you assume a God exists you are going to find a way to justify that belief, and it won't be due to evidence or reasoning. People want their MTV. In religion if you can imagine it, it can be real to you.

I have found God in my life, as i always say, I can not speak for other believers or non believers.
Since God is in my understanding not a physical being i have no way of proving God to others.

I does not bother me that non believers do not believe that my belief in God is real or true.
Feel free to believe it is imagination

 

[F1fan]

A placebo can't work unless we 'believe in' it. And then, how it works depends on what we believe it will do for/to us. Theism based on "believing in" some particular concept of God is dangerous. It's why religions sometimes become toxic to everyone that gets involved in it. Religion can be corrupted by people who want to use it for negative purposes.

It's an interesting comparison. Of course it doesn't help theism because you are suggesting that God is not authentic and the experiences are produced in the mind just as the effectiveness of a placebo is. I suspect you are correct in this.

Theism based on faith, however, can be very helpful to us. Because it does not seek to eliminate doubt through enforced belief, but to trust in hope even as we acknowledge our doubts. Faith is an excellent tool for moving ahead when we can't determine the outcome in advance. "God" is a means of identifying, clarifying, and symbolizing the ideals that we would most hope to be manifested in our lives, and putting our faith in 'God' is an effective way of actively moving toward those ideals even when we can't know that they will manifest the results that we'd hoped for.

Evolutionary biology suggests there is an evolved trait that about 85% of humans are religious. How societies and cultures are religious varies, but it is a learned behavior, copied, passed on, mimicked. The "placebo" of religion is helpful to help bind people into tribes, and this satisfies various needs like belonging.

All this foolishness about 'evidence' and 'proof' is just that: foolishness.

Then theists should avoid debate, because evidence is crucial.

Faith is how we humans move forward when we don't have the convincing evidence or proof to overcome our doubts in advance. But we're willing to act on the our hope, in the face of that unknowing.

Yet faith doesn't inform a person about reality, nor give them tools to make better decisions. It is a way for people to satisfy certain anxieties of self-awareness.

 

[F1fan]

I have found God in my life, as i always say, I can not speak for other believers or non believers.

There are plenty of gods to chose from in the religion buffet. As you noted, you decided a God exists, so it's not remarkable you found one.

Since God is in my understanding not a physical being i have no way of proving God to others.

Nor yourself. Let's note you are no different than other mortals, and if you can't demonstrate how you decided a God exists via some credible mental process to others, then there is none. It's the same for any imaginary friend. And that's fine, I just think it's more grounded to be honest with the self about this.

I does not bother me that non believers do not believe that my belief in God is real or true.
Feel free to believe it is imagination

We mortals have a reliable process to discern real from imaginary. It's important to some to understand the difference.

 

[Spirit of Light]

There are plenty of gods to chose from in the religion buffet. As you noted, you decided a God exists, so it's not remarkable you found one.


Nor yourself. Let's note you are no different than other mortals, and if you can't demonstrate how you decided a God exists via some credible mental process to others, then there is none. It's the same for any imaginary friend. And that's fine, I just think it's more grounded to be honest with the self about this.


We mortals have a reliable process to discern real from imaginary. It's important to some to understand the difference.

Finding God is not done with the logic you thinking of . To realize God one have to let go of thinking of the physical realm.

 

[rational experiences]

It's an interesting comparison. Of course it doesn't help theism because you are suggesting that God is not authentic and the experiences are produced in the mind just as the effectiveness of a placebo is. I suspect you are correct in this.


Evolutionary biology suggests there is an evolved trait that about 85% of humans are religious. How societies and cultures are religious varies, but it is a learned behavior, copied, passed on, mimicked. The "placebo" of religion is helpful to help bind people into tribes, and this satisfies various needs like belonging.


Then theists should avoid debate, because evidence is crucial.


Yet faith doesn't inform a person about reality, nor give them tools to make better decisions. It is a way for people to satisfy certain anxieties of self-awareness.

What if you don't believe in the God of science yet a spiritual being allowed you to know it existed?

I was passive. I was relaxed and meditating. And I was not seeking nor in want.

I know humans die. I never understood a concept that my own human self left to go somewhere else.

As the thought creation stopped for life at its death.

But I could relate that if we were released from a body affected by a cooling evolved creation then we would experience another spirit state after death.

As it was first always. The information is not difficult to accept when science says it can own all things of God powers.

 

[F1fan]

Finding God is not done with the logic you thinking of . To realize God one have to let go of thinking of the physical realm.

Thinking is a physical process. We exist in the physical realm. There's no known other realm that isn't physical, except in the imagination, and of course it's no actual realm.

I understand that is satisfying. It is important to understand what the mind is doing that is illusion. We have the ability. Does a person have the strength and will?

 

[F1fan]

What if you don't believe in the God of science ....

There's a God of science? Why wasn't I told?

 

[Spirit of Light]

Thinking is a physical process. We exist in the physical realm. There's no known other realm that isn't physical, except in the imagination, and of course it's no actual realm.

I understand that is satisfying. It is important to understand what the mind is doing that is illusion. We have the ability. Does a person have the strength and will?

Can you 100% prove God do not exist? Or is it your belief God do not exist ?

 

[rational experiences]

There's a God of science? Why wasn't I told?

Seeing men said earth and planets are gods no other reason to discuss a human taught concept.

 

[1213]

Respect for responding directly to the OP.
But how would you points above point to the Christian God rather than (say) Aphrodite?

I would say it is because the same is not said about Aphrodite.

Ultimately, I think it's impossible to 'prove' a particular flavour of God, so I'm not expecting you to, nor would I say that then means your beliefs are wrong. But the OPs point is interesting, in some ways. It's something I've often thought about, but never framed quite in this way.

I can agree that proving is probably impossible for us. Some say it is only possible in mathematics. That is why for me it is enough to say, I believe in God and I believe what the Bible tells. And I understand if you don’t believe. But, before deciding, I think it would be good to know first what the Bible tells and what is the God.

 

[1213]

...

We now have a creator god and a love god...

And to be clear, they are the same.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The bottom line is that given your present mindset, God is not available to you.

Neither is Bigfoot. To accept Bigfoot, I'd need to give up skepticism and critical thought.

That alone is what keeps such unevidenced concepts - gods, Bigfoot, leprechauns, devils, djinns - from becoming beliefs.

What you are advocating is for the rational skeptic to deactivate his defense against accepting false beliefs. One ought to care whether what he believes is accurate, since he is going to be making decisions based on his mental map of reality. Like a literal folding map, if the picture shown isn't an accurate depiction of the roads out there (reality), then one will have difficulty arriving at some desired destination.

no such objective evidence or proof is ever going to be available.

That is true about every claim or belief that is false. Is it ever true about any correct idea? What would it mean to say that an idea was correct but that there could be no evidence of it?

No more information is coming. Now it's time to look within.

Answers that come from within are about oneself and are of ones own creation. They are not received. They are generated from within.

do you have the courage to actually put your trust in that ideal 'god'?

How is trusting in a god one has to believe in by faith an act of courage? To me, it's a sin against the self to believe without sufficient justification. That's what one who is trying to exploit another needs him to do - believe without justification. And they call it a virtue.

Then, having done so, and lived for some time, accordingly, what have you found to be the results?

The religion did not deliver on its promises. I suspended disbelief for years on the hope that if this god existed, what seemed irrational would later seem otherwise, like a pair of shoes that don't fit exactly right until one walks in them for awhile. If foot pain due to shoes not fitting can stand in for the cognitive dissonance that arises from trying to believe an idea that sounds wrong. then the foot pain never disappeared. The shoes (religion) never fit. So I removed them and tried a different pair, one based in skepticism, empiricism, reason, and compassion rather than received answers accepted uncritically. A better fit.

You can see why I don't want to buy another pair of those shoes.

If those result were less that what you'd hoped, how could you change your concept of God, and your way of life in relation to that concept, to perhaps get better results?

I got better results outside of religion than in it. That's why I've stayed there for about four decades, and have good reason to keep it that way.

if you reject the whole possibility of god, outright, what will be the consequences of that choice?

I don't reject the possibility of gods. But I need more than that to believe that they exist. I'm interested in what exists (actual), which is a subset of what might exist (potential).

Are you willing to live with such enforced ignorance? Is that who you want to be?

This is an odd comment. Are you assuming that you have something to offer here, some kind of enlightenment to release others from what you consider ignorance?

I'd say it's the other way around. What is faith except self-enforced ignorance? You've probably seen the quotes I like to reproduce of faith-based thinkers bragging about their faith in the Bible such that they are closed off to evidence. That's self-imposed ignorance. Whatever they don't know now that conflicts with their Bibles, they can never know. Here's self-imposed ignorance and closed-mindedness in the extreme. Here's one of those:

• "The moderator in the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, 'What would change your minds?' Scientist Bill Nye answered, 'Evidence.' Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, 'Nothing. I'm a Christian.' Elsewhere, Ham stated, 'By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record."

I used to be there with them, but I tunneled out. Here's another example:

• “If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

Please explain why you think people that reject this kind of thinking are ignorant rather than those who embrace it.

Facing this faith choice, and following the process is the only way you're ever going to gain any experience of God. Just sitting there demanding evidence that isn't ever going to come is just a waste of your time and energy.

I've already made my "faith choice." No to belief by faith. It can't possibly be a path to truth, since one can pick any idea, however wrong, and accept it by faith. I'm looking for correct answers, not comforting ones, so I have chosen a different method of deciding what is true about the world.

Refusing to believe by faith is what protects one from those peddling false beliefs. Insisting on subjecting all ideas to critical analysis is the best defense one has against accumulating wrong ideas. You want me to let down that guard to accept your idea. You say it like that would be a virtue rather than a logical error. It's not. It's merely the will to believe, untethered to reality by evidence. I call that a bad way to think.

I'm simply not interested in any idea that only be believed by faith. That's pretty much the definition of a wrong idea - something that you won't find supporting evidence for in reality, so, if you're going to believe it, you'll need to do so for no good reason. I have experience with this method of thinking from my Christian days, and perhaps the worse mistake I ever made was made because I was willing to believe by faith something for which there was no evidence, evidence I should have insisted on before believing.

Frequently, we encounter people on RF who claim to have a better way of life to offer others. How do you suppose one ought to judge such claims?

I look at the source. Does this person seem to be benefiting from this belief system in a way that I could use? Does he seem more centered, happier, smarter - anything others might want as well? I don't see it.

What do you think that you have to offer somebody who is as happy or happier than you are without it? Why are you assuming that he would be happier if he were like you, or that you wouldn't be better off following his path? You're trying to sell something to people who see no value in your advice, and you make no effort to tell them why they should. You just tell them that they are ignorant and closed-minded, implying that you are not, and that there is so much more if one follows your path.

You've implied repeatedly that unbelievers are closing the door on something that you seem to think that they would value if they opened that door, but never say what that would be. Isn't that an element of every commercial - why you should but this Big Mac, or why you should choose this law firm or insurance company over others? They always tell you how you'll benefit even if they are being disingenuous and exaggerating or lying. You'll have greater confidence with a Gleam smile, or this X-Box will provide you with hours of entertainment - always some reason why you should want what they're selling.

But you've never gotten around to that. You are also pitching something, but have never gotten around to explaining why you think others would want it.

Instead, you offer them taunts for not engaging in faith-based thinking with you.

I'm pretty sure that I could make your life better with my life advice to you if you would accept it, but I know that you aren't interested, I don't give unsolicited advice, and I'm not trying to spread my philosophy. It's been my map for navigating my landscape for quite a while now, and it's gotten me to my desired destination. The goal was always to live a life that I could be proud of, which would be a source of lasting satisfaction. The trick is to avoid shame and regret, to be loved and respected, to be free of fear and anxiety, to be free of excess desire, to feel centered and on the right path, and the like.

I think I've done that. Have you? If not, why are you giving others that you don't know unsolicited advice?

 

[Heyo]

And to be clear, they are the same.

That is actually part of the challenge, to explain how you can add properties to the "proven" generic god without running into contradictions and with explaining how you know that your god has those properties.

 

[F1fan]

Can you 100% prove God do not exist?

With equal success of you 100% proving the Tooth Fairy does not exist.

Your request is absurd and not rational because it's exceptionally difficult to prove any arbitrary thing doesn't exist. This is why the burden of proof in on claimants. Those who aren't convinced any of the thousands of Gods exist don't have to worry about any of it.

But you already said God wasn't a rational process, why ask me to prove it doesn't exist when you admit you can't prove it does exist?

Or is it your belief God do not exist ?

No, that's a play on words. We don't believe in the non-existence of things not known to exist. We just aren't convinced your claims that your version of God exists outside of your imagination.

 

[F1fan]

Seeing men said earth and planets are gods no other reason to discuss a human taught concept.

Isn't that a headline straight for the front page of the NY Times?

 

[rational experiences]

Isn't that a headline straight for the front page of the NY Times?

As I am not a coder claiming human thoughts own a God code i don't even know what you are pretending. Seeing New York is built by humans lived in by human choice and is not science.

 

[F1fan]

Neither is Bigfoot. To accept Bigfoot, I'd need to give up skepticism and critical thought.

That alone is what keeps such unevidenced concepts - gods, Bigfoot, leprechauns, devils, djinns - from becoming beliefs.

What you are advocating is for the rational skeptic to deactivate his defense against accepting false beliefs. One ought to care whether what he believes is accurate, since he is going to be making decisions based on his mental map of reality. Like a literal folding map, if the picture shown isn't an accurate depiction of the roads out there (reality), then one will have difficulty arriving at some desired destination.



That is true about every claim or belief that is false. Is it ever true about any correct idea? What would it mean to say that an idea was correct but that there could be no evidence of it?



Answers that come from within are about oneself and are of ones own creation. They are not received. They are generated from within.



How is trusting in a god one has to believe in by faith an act of courage? To me, it's a sin against the self to believe without sufficient justification. That's what one who is trying to exploit another needs him to do - believe without justification. And they call it a virtue.



The religion did not deliver on its promises. I suspended disbelief for years on the hope that if this god existed, what seemed irrational would later seem otherwise, like a pair of shoes that don't fit exactly right until one walks in them for awhile. If foot pain due to shoes not fitting can stand in for the cognitive dissonance that arises from trying to believe an idea that sounds wrong. then the foot pain never disappeared. The shoes (religion) never fit. So I removed them and tried a different pair, one based in skepticism, empiricism, reason, and compassion rather than received answers accepted uncritically. A better fit.

You can see why I don't want to buy another pair of those shoes.



I got better results outside of religion than in it. That's why I've stayed there for about four decades, and have good reason to keep it that way.



I don't reject the possibility of gods. But I need more than that to believe that they exist. I'm interested in what exists (actual), which is a subset of what might exist (potential).



This is an odd comment. Are you assuming that you have something to offer here, some kind of enlightenment to release others from what you consider ignorance?

I'd say it's the other way around. What is faith except self-enforced ignorance? You've probably seen the quotes I like to reproduce of faith-based thinkers bragging about their faith in the Bible such that they are closed off to evidence. That's self-imposed ignorance. Whatever they don't know now that conflicts with their Bibles, they can never know. Here's self-imposed ignorance and closed-mindedness in the extreme. Here's one of those:

• "The moderator in the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, 'What would change your minds?' Scientist Bill Nye answered, 'Evidence.' Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, 'Nothing. I'm a Christian.' Elsewhere, Ham stated, 'By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record."

I used to be there with them, but I tunneled out. Here's another example:

• “If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

Please explain why you think people that reject this kind of thinking are ignorant rather than those who embrace it.



I've already made my "faith choice." No to belief by faith. It can't possibly be a path to truth, since one can pick any idea, however wrong, and accept it by faith. I'm looking for correct answers, not comforting ones, so I have chosen a different method of deciding what is true about the world.

Refusing to believe by faith is what protects one from those peddling false beliefs. Insisting on subjecting all ideas to critical analysis is the best defense one has against accumulating wrong ideas. You want me to let down that guard to accept your idea. You say it like that would be a virtue rather than a logical error. It's not. It's merely the will to believe, untethered to reality by evidence. I call that a bad way to think.

I'm simply not interested in any idea that only be believed by faith. That's pretty much the definition of a wrong idea - something that you won't find supporting evidence for in reality, so, if you're going to believe it, you'll need to do so for no good reason. I have experience with this method of thinking from my Christian days, and perhaps the worse mistake I ever made was made because I was willing to believe by faith something for which there was no evidence, evidence I should have insisted on before believing.

Frequently, we encounter people on RF who claim to have a better way of life to offer others. How do you suppose one ought to judge such claims?

I look at the source. Does this person seem to be benefiting from this belief system in a way that I could use? Does he seem more centered, happier, smarter - anything others might want as well? I don't see it.

What do you think that you have to offer somebody who is as happy or happier than you are without it? Why are you assuming that he would be happier if he were like you, or that you wouldn't be better off following his path? You're trying to sell something to people who see no value in your advice, and you make no effort to tell them why they should. You just tell them that they are ignorant and closed-minded, implying that you are not, and that there is so much more if one follows your path.

You've implied repeatedly that unbelievers are closing the door on something that you seem to think that they would value if they opened that door, but never say what that would be. Isn't that an element of every commercial - why you should but this Big Mac, or why you should choose this law firm or insurance company over others? They always tell you how you'll benefit even if they are being disingenuous and exaggerating or lying. You'll have greater confidence with a Gleam smile, or this X-Box will provide you with hours of entertainment - always some reason why you should want what they're selling.

But you've never gotten around to that. You are also pitching something, but have never gotten around to explaining why you think others would want it.

Instead, you offer them taunts for not engaging in faith-based thinking with you.

I'm pretty sure that I could make your life better with my life advice to you if you would accept it, but I know that you aren't interested, I don't give unsolicited advice, and I'm not trying to spread my philosophy. It's been my map for navigating my landscape for quite a while now, and it's gotten me to my desired destination. The goal was always to live a life that I could be proud of, which would be a source of lasting satisfaction. The trick is to avoid shame and regret, to be loved and respected, to be free of fear and anxiety, to be free of excess desire, to feel centered and on the right path, and the like.

I think I've done that. Have you? If not, why are you giving others that you don't know unsolicited advice?

Brilliant!!