Lack of Evidence

[Clara Tea]

Choosing to believe is wilfull send deception.

Substitute chupacabra for God.

See if ' no evidence for" and, " no evidence against" are truly equivalent, chupa being
a what, 50 - 50.
Or the teapot out there.

I went to McDonald's (hamburgers), and saw a little kid with soda straws shoved onto his teeth (hmm...fangs.....hmm....a chupacabra). One could believe that the chupacabra exist because one mistook a little boy playing with a couple of straws for a real chupacabra. And there it is....the monster....right there in McDonald's.

Belief is a strange thing. On volcanic islands it is easy to see God as a powerful erupting volcano, spewing hot lava, and getting mad until placated with the most delicious foods and the sacrifice of the most delicate virgin. At least, with a volcano God there is something tangible.

Another thing that we could say about the chupacabra is that many people have claimed to have seen it. Would they have claimed to have seen something that is not real?

Peer pressure is a factor. If many people believe in something, others might join them.

 

[Clara Tea]

Which god does Joe believe in? Thor? Zeus? Poseidon? Or perhaps my favorite, FSM?

Or is it a different god that Joe believes in? And if so, why not the others I mentioned?

FSM makes a lot of sense for the Vatican (they are Italian). Does garlic bread come with this religion?

 

[Clara Tea]

I talked with a mormon missionary who
told me of his experience with God telling him
the BoM is all true.

For the person hearing God, God is real. But, will anyone else believe that he had a conversation with God?

 

[Altfish]

Joe believes a god does exist.
John doesn't believe a god does exist.

Fact is there is lack of evidence for a god existing and lack of evidence for a god not existing because science has no stance either way.

So my question is if both have lack of evidence, isn't what is chosen to accept merely based on personal choice?

Science does have a stance. It cannot investigate the supernatural or magic.
Science relies on repeatability of evidence, if none exists it is not science.

Science doesn't confirm that ghosts and/or spirits exist because there is no experiment you do to test the supernatural.

BUT it usually expected that if you make a claim, it is up to you to provide evidence for your claim, especially if it is a remarkable claim like "God exists"

 

[Clara Tea]

Based on belief and faith in those we call Prophets, that what they spoke about was and still are from God.
Maybe some people are a bit stuck on the "God" aspect of this.
My understanding of God are different than others understanding of what God truly are.
I can not disprove others understanding or believe. Only focus on how I am understanding and how my belief can be verified to me, through my own life.

Maybe we need to be less concerned about what others believe or have fath in. And focus inward in our own being

Just a thought...

Jesus taught that we need to focus less on our own being, and focus on others, as he did. (Today, that would be the homeless, starving, war torn, torture camp victims, environment, etc). Speaking up about it is a start.

 

[Clara Tea]

Science does have a stance. It cannot investigate the supernatural or magic.
Science relies on repeatability of evidence, if none exists it is not science.

Science doesn't confirm that ghosts and/or spirits exist because there is no experiment you do to test the supernatural.

BUT it usually expected that if you make a claim, it is up to you to provide evidence for your claim, especially if it is a remarkable claim like "God exists"

His point is that it is also a remarkable claim that God doesn't exist, and it is a claim without proof.

I answered that claim by saying that there are an infinite number of things to believe in if you don't require proof. So, it is better to believe only once there is no alternative.

Some are awestruck by the miracle and complexity of life, claiming that some higher intelligence must have created it.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Jesus taught that we need to focus less on our own being, and focus on others, as he did. (Today, that would be the homeless, starving, war torn, torture camp victims, environment, etc). Speaking up about it is a start.

To help other, of course that is very important, but I was speaking of, "less concerned of others belief" that does not mean to stop helping those who need our help.

 

[sun rise]

So my question is if both have lack of evidence, isn't what is chosen to accept merely based on personal choice?

Basically I agree.

No flood evidence

List of flood myths | Wikiwand are a list of various flood myths from very different cultures all over the world. It's possible to assume that some flood happened, perhaps local ones, that turned into mythology as the story was told and retold. For example:

• Ifugao: One year, when the rainy season should have come, it did not. When the river dried up, the people dug into its grave, hoping to find the soul of the river. They struck a great spring, which angered the river gods. It began to rain and the river overflowed its banks. The resulting flood wiped out all of humanity save for two survivors, Wigan and Bugan, who repopulated the earth once the waters receded.[20]

You're conflating lack of objective evidence with lack of experiential evidence.

Great point.

None of those threads - at least as far as I saw - ever made a case for why mystical experiences would necessarily be evidence for God.

Experiential evidence is not related to objective evidence. What can be objectively derived is that people from the Middle East through India have all reported basically the same thing whether they be Rumi, Hafiz, Kabir, Ramakrishna and many others including the Baal Shem Tov.

 

[Altfish]

His point is that it is also a remarkable claim that God doesn't exist, and it is a claim without proof.

I answered that claim by saying that there are an infinite number of things to believe in if you don't require proof. So, it is better to believe only once there is no alternative.

Some are awestruck by the miracle and complexity of life, claiming that some higher intelligence must have created it.

He may believe it is a remarkable claim that 'god does not exist'; but compared to the claim 'god exists' it is not.

 

[ChristineM]

List of flood myths | Wikiwand are a list of various flood myths from very different cultures all over the world. It's possible to assume that some flood happened, perhaps local ones, that turned into mythology as the story was told and retold. For example

I can live with local foods of which there have been plenty leaving copious evidence. Just about every year we are effectively isolated from north and west by flood waters from the river Dordogne and Ceou. Yes, there is evidence and observation of local floods

There is however no evidence of any world wide flood killing the entire human population except a few lucky friends of the god who it is claimed created the world flood. On the contrary, there is much evidence to disprove a world flood.

 

[osgart]

That makes no sense sorry, and the endless pile of discarded religious beliefs, and abandoned deities rather destroys the subjective idea that something must be true in order to "get something from it". I imagine the ancient Romans "got something from believing in their deities, does this mean they must be real? How about the Aztec god of gluttony, I'd bet I could get something from that belief.

I didn't say anything about it being true. I said that many of them regard their beliefs as true based on those criteria. The criteria may give believers some true things though.

I wasn't saying it's true because they get something out of it. I only meant that it succeeds in growing and manifesting itself.

I'm willing to bet there are philosophical underpinnings to how you establish that something is fact, and something else is not.

 

[Sheldon]

You are appealing by authority, you trust it.

No, it was you who did this using the vague descriptors "fringe scientist", I don't believe something because a scientist says it, it has to satisfy the scientific method, it is not therefore an appeal to authority fallacy, as scientific facts are accepted as such based on the method validating sufficient objective evidence, just as a scientific consensus is not a bare appeal to numbers for the same reason.

The thing to me, the only "authority" I trust when it comes to expertise of normal people, is when it's knowledge that has to work for things to work.

I have no idea what that means, but it is an appeal to authority if one appeals only to the person(s) rather than the evidence. You made just such an appeal citing "fringe scientists", but not any peer reviewed work or accepted scientific theories.

If a medical doctor has all his patients dying, then, you know I would not trust them either.

I don't have enough information, and the relevance of this vague claim escapes me here. Where is the peer reviewed work of these "fringe scientists" you referred to? The word fringe suggests to me that their work is not accepted by mainstream science, hence it sounds like an appeal to authority by using the word scientists, even though their work is not validated by the method.

The science that doesn't fall in verification mode in real world, where their expertise can be witnessed to work, to me is just like Art or philosophy I can't verify unless I know it myself.

Again that is a mess of a paragraph, the validity of scientific work is accepted if, and only if, it satisfies the stringent requirements of that method. You have cited precisely nothing like that in your claim. Only the bare claim it exists and the vague descriptor of "fringe scientists".

 

[Link]

I haven't proven it. I'm hoping people interested do some research. But it's up to them.

 

[Sheldon]

I didn't say anything about it being true.

I said that many of them regard their beliefs as true based on those criteria.

The criteria may give believers some true things though.

A belief is the acceptance that something is true? You said they wouldn't believe it if they "got nothing from it". Thus they think it is true, the criteria though as I pointed out applies to a long list of discarded deities and religions.

I wasn't saying it's true because they get something out of it. I only meant that it succeeds in growing and manifesting itself.

Well that wasn't what you said, and what does manifesting itself mean exactly?

Believers believe based on the interpretation of evidence philosophically. They prove and test their faith through personal experience. Since believers congregate in communities of believers they manifest their faith in reality. If they had gotten nothing out of their beliefs they wouldn't put much time into it.

I've emboldened the sentence I challenged, because "getting something out of it" though a pretty vague claim, would be true of adherents of a long list of discarded religions and deities. Getting something out of the belief rather suggests a motive to believe, rather than validating the belief itself in any way.

As for proving and testing their faith, that's just a bare claim unless you can demonstrate something to support it beyond bare subjective claims for personal experience.

 

[Sheldon]

I haven't proven it. I'm hoping people interested do some research. But it's up to them.

Well you haven't offered anything at all beyond a bare claim, and if you think others are going to research your claims for you, that seems unlikely based on naught but a bare claim.

Fringe scientists have mastered a method of disproving any deity is possible. Are you off to research that claim? Only I'd be stunned if a bare claim was taken seriously in a debate forum. Especially one so vague. As I said if any scientific evidence were validated for a deity, or anything supernatural or spiritual one can just imagine the effect of such a paradigm shifting event. The idea I'd find in an internet chat room, based on a bare claim is frankly absurd.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Experiential evidence is not related to objective evidence.

Experience of what, though?

Is a hallucination evidence of the existence of the thing being imagined?

What can be objectively derived is that people from the Middle East through India have all reported basically the same thing whether they be Rumi, Hafiz, Kabir, Ramakrishna and many others including the Baal Shem Tov.

... so when we hit the edges of cultural diffusion of the Abrahamic God, people stop getting "experiential evidence" of the Abrahamic God?

This sure points to some cultural priming, IMO.

 

[osgart]

A belief is the acceptance that something is true? You said they wouldn't believe it if they "got nothing from it". Thus they think it is true, the criteria though as I pointed out applies to a long list of discarded deities and religions.



Well that wasn't what you said, and what does manifesting itself mean exactly?



I've emboldened the sentence I challenged, because "getting something out of it" though a pretty vague claim, would be true of adherents of a long list of discarded religions and deities. Getting something out of the belief rather suggests a motive to believe, rather than validating the belief itself in any way.

As for proving and testing their faith, that's just a bare claim unless you can demonstrate something to support it beyond bare subjective claims for personal experience.

A belief is the acceptance that something is true? You said they wouldn't believe it if they "got nothing from it". Thus they think it is true, the criteria though as I pointed out applies to a long list of discarded deities and religions.



Well that wasn't what you said, and what does manifesting itself mean exactly?



I've emboldened the sentence I challenged, because "getting something out of it" though a pretty vague claim, would be true of adherents of a long list of discarded religions and deities. Getting something out of the belief rather suggests a motive to believe, rather than validating the belief itself in any way.

As for proving and testing their faith, that's just a bare claim unless you can demonstrate something to support it beyond bare subjective claims for personal experience.

The believer's religion becomes true for them; it takes on a reality in their relationships, and how they live their lives and build their worlds. There could be factual elements to their beliefs. They certainly create meaning amongst themselves.

Well I consider it a fact that values, and virtues properly defined are needed to have healthy relationships. I consider that a proven fact. I had to have faith in that fact, and it had to make sense to me in order to have faith in it. And beyond that I had to put that to the test in how I establish my relationships.

The validity is in the philosophical interpretation, and goes beyond science to come to their conclusions.

Getting something out of it, only means that they have shared meanings that are of value to themselves. Gluttony is not some value.

As far as getting something out of their religion I can't dismiss all of it as rubbish. There are things that function within their framework for living.

As for me I'm an atheist. I don't consider everyone that associates with a religion to be a true believer.

 

[Polymath257]

Joe believes a god does exist.
John doesn't believe a god does exist.

Fact is there is lack of evidence for a god existing and lack of evidence for a god not existing because science has no stance either way.

So my question is if both have lack of evidence, isn't what is chosen to accept merely based on personal choice?

The burden of proof is on the person making the positive existence claim.

This is pretty standard. If you want to claim that Bigfoot exists, you have to give evidence. If you want to claim that the Higg's boson exists, you have to give evidence. So, if you want to claim that God exists, you have to give evidence.

In all cases, the lack of evidence is a good reason to not believe and a poor reason to believe.

 

[Polymath257]

Personal choice and evidence.such as.
Childhood leukemia
The mosquito.
The marmot.
The futility of prayer
No flood evidence counters the bible tale in so many ways i cannot understand why there are still believers in god created a world flood
Genetics.
All serve me as hard evidence that no god exists.

Of course believers have their own ideas

I would say that this is evidence that there is no *good* god. it is consistent with an evil creator.

 

[1213]

Joe believes a god does exist.
John doesn't believe a god does exist.

Fact is there is lack of evidence for a god existing and lack of evidence for a god not existing because science has no stance either way.

So my question is if both have lack of evidence, isn't what is chosen to accept merely based on personal choice?

Probably it is anyway personal choice, but I think there is evidence for God. God is the creator of life and this world, we can see the creations, therefore we have evidence for the creator. Also Bible is evidence for God, because it indicates God has influenced in life.