Spiritual Evidence and Proofs of God’s Existence

[danieldemol]

Biblical archaeology is a science.

I believe Archeology is a science that provides contrary evidence to the Biblical narrative to be more specific.

The problem with that, is the same as your science. 1) They are limited. 2) They are not the only source to truth. 3) They are often wrong.

1) Folklore is even more limited as a source of truth. 2)Sure, logic and reason are also paths to truth, but faith is neither of those nor is it science. Anything can be believed. 3)The Bible is often wrong, but unlike science the Bible doesn't correct itself. We literally only know where science got it wrong because the application of a greater amount of evidence confirmed the faults of earlier theories, in other words it was the scientific method in combination with more facts that showed the earlier theories were in error. So you literally can't prove that science got anything wrong without resorting to science if you want to be logical about it in my opinion.

So can you give a good reason why I need science to demonstrate something that science cannot consider?

Science considers questions concerning the material realm according to my understanding. If a person comes up with evidence that heat from internal combustion expands gases that push cylinders and another person says with no evidence "no internal combustion did not cause it, God is pushing the cylinders" that person has made a claim concerning the material realm which places their God into the magisteria of science.

The only claim which can be considered correct by science is the one with evidence - the contrary claim with no evidence stands rejected by science.

By saying "evolution did not make virtuous behavior God did it" I wonder if you even have the capacity to tell why this puts your God into the domain of science's consideration?

I also wonder if you have the capacity to analyse which part of the analogy of internal combustion engines i provided your contrary assertion - that God did it without evolution - most resembles?

In my opinion.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Again, that is your viewpoint, which I support you in having.

For me, love requires choice. Robotic controlled living isn't living. Think of it as a marriage. Would it really be a marriages if you controlled your spouse?

I find it quite liberating and life-filled.

Please not this irrational garbage again.

There's no excuse for suffering in free will.

 

[Kenny]

Please not this irrational garbage again.

There's no excuse for suffering in free will.

Tell the people who are night racing with no lights on, causing the death of two parents leaving 3 children without parents. There is no excuse of course. Irrational in their driving? Absolutely. Free will... definitely. Man caused and not God caused? Obviously. No excuse for suffering in free will? not logical

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

it is not reasonable to expect everything to go as prayed.

It is reasonable to expect more to go as prayed if a tri-omni god exists than if one doesn't exist, and if this occurred, it could be confirmed empirically. It's been studied scientifically in controlled, double-blinded studies, and all that was found was a harmful placebo effect in the context of cardiac patients being prayed for before life-threatening surgery: Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer - PubMed

Bible doesn't promise that God will do anything anyone asks.

Then what does this mean? "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move."

Please explain why do you think so? Doesn't sound critical to settle into agnostic atheism. Perhaps you mean that one is only critical to ideas of others, not to his own thinking?

I had written, "Critical thought applied to the problem of gods leads to only one possibility: agnostic atheism." God claims that are falsifiable have been falsified empirically. Unfalsifiable and unsupported claims can be ignored. There is no sound argument that concludes, "therefore God." Thus, belief in gods is not supported by critical analysis, making atheism the only rational position. But also, there is no sound argument that concludes, "therefore god's don't exist" thus making agnosticism the only rational conclusion.

God creates perfectness, and we mess it up. Free will.

That's hardly perfection. Remove the free will part and gift man only with wholesome and constructive instincts if you want perfection, or remove man form the formula altogether.

Robotic controlled living isn't living.

Being of one mind is not robotic, which is mindless. Nor is it undesirable. Au contraire. It is an unreachable goal nevertheless worth pursuing.

Think of it as a marriage. Would it really be a marriage if you controlled your spouse?

Irrelevant. Would it be a marriage if she were of one mind compatible with mine? It would be an excellent marriage. And if I were as intelligent, powerful and benevolent as a tri-omni God, I'd be doing us both a favor by making us more compatible, as would she if she were the tri-omni agent. Free will is not the gift of a tri-omni god. What I just described and which you call robotic would its gift.

I believe that free will is very likely an illusion, and that life is not the result of choices that could have been otherwise. If so, that's what you call robotic, and which I call a perfectly acceptable possibility, and one which can generate a fulfilling life as what you call a robot.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Tell the people who are night racing with no lights on, causing the death of two parents leaving 3 children without parents. There is no excuse of course. Irrational in their driving? Absolutely. Free will... definitely. Man caused and not God caused? Obviously. No excuse for suffering in free will? not logical

I'm sure we've gone over this many times, but here we go again:

The things that are covered by free will:

- our decision of whether or not to act on our desires

The things that are not part of free will:

- what our desires are
- our physical ability to make what we desire to happen

So in your example, things that would have had nothing to do with free will that could have prevented the deaths:

- the weather could have been different, prompting different free-will (but predictable) decisions of the participants.

- the street racers could have got a flat tire on the way, causing them not to street race despite wanting to.

- the street racers could have just not had a desire to race unsafely to choose to indulge.

- human physiology - or the laws of physics - could have been different so that car crashes can't be fatal.

So yes: "free will" doesn’t get God off the hook.

 

[Kenny]

That's hardly perfection. Remove the free will part and gift man only with wholesome and constructive instincts if you want perfection, or remove man form the formula altogether.

I guess we just view it differently.

Being of one mind is not robotic, which is mindless. Nor is it undesirable. Au contraire. It is an unreachable goal nevertheless worth pursuing.

I disagree in logic. If one is "of one mind" - it is a free will decision to be of another mind (potential there)

Irrelevant. Would it be a marriage if she were of one mind compatible with mine? It would be an excellent marriage. And if I were as intelligent, powerful and benevolent as a tri-omni God, I'd be doing us both a favor by making us more compatible, as would she if she were the tri-omni agent. Free will is not the gift of a tri-omni god. What I just described and which you call robotic would its gift.

I believe that free will is very likely an illusion, and that life is not the result of choices that could have been otherwise. If so, that's what you call robotic, and which I call a perfectly acceptable possibility, and one which can generate a fulfilling life as what you call a robot.

Quite frankly, this makes no sense to me. Have you found a marriage of "one mind"? And if they are of "different mind", isn't it love that makes one decide to be of one mind?

 

[Kenny]

I'm sure we've gone over this many times, but here we go again:

The things that are covered by free will:

- our decision of whether or not to act on our desires

Yes, I can agree that it is a free will on this one.

The things that are not part of free will:

- what our desires are

Proof?

- our physical ability to make what we desire to happen

Yes, our physical ability can make it impossible, but does that mean one didn't try?

So in your example, things that would have had nothing to do with free will that could have prevented the deaths:

- the weather could have been different, prompting different free-will (but predictable) decisions of the participants.

- the street racers could have got a flat tire on the way, causing them not to street race despite wanting to.

- the street racers could have just not had a desire to race unsafely to choose to indulge.

- human physiology - or the laws of physics - could have been different so that car crashes can't be fatal.

So yes: "free will" doesn’t get God off the hook.

irrelevancy gone to seed? What in the world does any of the above change the young people's free will to street race at night with no lights on that killed the friends of my daughter?

 

[metis]

Tell the people who are night racing with no lights on, causing the death of two parents leaving 3 children without parents. There is no excuse of course. Irrational in their driving? Absolutely. Free will... definitely. Man caused and not God caused? Obviously. No excuse for suffering in free will? not logical

There's a Jewish commentary that has it that when YHWH made our universe and all in it, He made it "good" but not "perfect". Had He made it "perfect", then our world would not actually be ours but only His.

 

[Watchmen]

There is no such thing as “spiritual proof.” Everyone gets warm and fuzzy about their own religion, thinking theirs is the only “true” church. They can’t all be right, hence that warm and fuzzy “spiritual proof” is meaningless. It’s not proof at all.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

There is no such thing as “spiritual proof.” Everyone gets warm and fuzzy about their own religion, thinking theirs is the only “true” church. They can’t all be right, hence that warm and fuzzy “spiritual proof” is meaningless. It’s not proof at all.

That is not so of all religion. Some, but not all.
As for religion being meaningless or not, there is no proof of that. Meaningless is also a feeling and not proof.

 

[Kenny]

There's a Jewish commentary that has it that when YHWH made our universe and all in it, He made it "good" but not "perfect". Had He made it "perfect", then our world would not actually be ours but only His.

That is interesting!! I'm adding that to my understanding. Genesis never said "perfect" - just "good".

 

[nPeace]

In the sense that Genesis is not the bible and Isaiah is not the bible and the gospels are not the bible and Paul is not the bible, sure.

BUT the Tanakh is all about the Jewish God and the NT claims to be about the same God and that same God did all the things in the Torah, and you want to hold [him] up as the exemplar of morals. Whereas I see that God as typical of [his] times, like all gods a reflection of [his] worshipers and their values. That's why God has changed with time, from the henotheistic model who demanded no other gods be placed ahead of him, to the post-Babylonian sole deity, to the apocalyptic god of the gospels whose kingdom is now running 2000 years late, to the post-NT politically devised triune Christian god who is unambiguously not the Jewish god at all. Oh, and the God who reluctantly renounced slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries, and changed [his] views on divorce in the 20th century (when two world wars gave an enormous fillip to the 19th century's proto-feminism by introducing millions of women to paid employment) and who is still struggling with LGBTQ but will adjust as society adjusts.

Those who read the Bible carefully, and not with a closed-minded bias, know that God did not change his views on anything.

After all, a god must keep up with [his] followers or lose them, and a god without a following is no god at all.

Not sure what you are talking about, except the misconceptions and misrepresentations of atheists.

No you didn't. You didn't tell me why any sacrifice was necessary, let alone that one. We're talking about an omnipotent being who can have whatever [he] wants with one snap of those omnipotent fingers ─ but instead [he] selects or creates a son and sends him on a suicide mission. Explain to me why that was necessary, what it accomplished that an omnipotent God could not otherwise accomplish.

This is your viewpoint. It is not scripture.

Yes, I admire bravery and self-sacrifice. So in your book all those people who volunteered for military service in WW1, WW2, Korea, Nam, &c &c &c and died as a result were each Jesus-equivalents? Really?

No. See - atheists misrepresentations.

But don't answer that till you've provided the explanation I requested about why the crucifixion of Jesus was necessary.

What explanation? Don't wait for any. I have nothing for blu.
Headaches are not pleasant.

 

[nPeace]

Equivalent arguments, supports and evidence. That's the analogy.

Cite some sources.

@Valjean your posts are messed up. You need to fix the issue.
Daniel's dreams were prophecies events foretold in advance, which came to true (were fulfilled) in accurate detail.
That is evidence - objective - empirical evidence.
It's just a few of many.

 

[nPeace]

It certainly doesn't have its origin in history ─ the evidence against any such event as is described in Genesis is overwhelming. Where did that extra billion cubic miles of water come from, and where is it now? Why is there no universal flood layer all over all continents, islands and the ocean floor? Why do animals not have evidence of a genetic bottleneck all of the same date? And so on.

Writing existed in Mesopotamia by 3000 BCE, devised by the (non-Semitic) Sumerians. Their cuneiform script was adopted by other (Semitic) Mesopotamian societies in the ensuing centuries. (The Egyptians were developing their own version of writing at about the same time, but it appears they're not relevant here ─ as you know, there's zero archaeological evidence for an Egyptian Captivity.) Mesopotamia has the two great rivers and the story of a farmer who saved his family and livestock from a flood by ingeniously using a floating device would be not too surprising. The accuracy of oral history as compared to written history has been examined in many places ─ I came across it with the shenachies of the Scottish Gaeltacht ─ and oral history is very clearly inferior. The Flood story was written down by the Sumerians, and passed to their neighbors the (Semitic) Akkadians, whence it made its way to (Semitic) Babylon. From there to (Semitic) Canaan is not a difficult leap.

No evidence connects the story itself to Canaan or the Judean region. Instead the bible version, thought to have been written down shortly after the middle of the first millennium BCE at the end of the Babylonian Captivity, strongly ─ I'd say very strongly ─ appears to be a version of the Sumerian / Babylonian tale.

Noah is older that 3,000 BC. So is Shem, Ham, and Japheth. etc.

 

[nPeace]

Talk of clutching on straws....
I don't know what happens in your silly supreme court appointments. But in private companies, where performance and profitability truly matters, employees have to go through performance review every year and every project has to be individually checked. Just because you did a good project once two years ago does not give you a clean chit for the other 10 projects you do after.

That is not what you are asking for. Strawman.

 

[metis]

Noah is older that 3,000 BC. So is Shem, Ham, and Japheth. etc.

Anyone who takes the Flood Narrative as real history will likely believe anything!

 

[nPeace]

Saying you have a double standard is idd not a comment about your character.
It is a comment about the logic / reasoning you present in an argument.

Something is wrong with you That means you can't see your dishonesty. Which means the content of your posts are inconsistent with what you are saying.
Is that okay?

 

[nPeace]

Anyone who takes the Flood Narrative as real history will likely believe anything!

I hope you know Jesus, Stephen, Paul, Peter, and all the apostles are in heaven hearing you.
We still have time to repent of things we say about them.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I hope you know Jesus, Stephen, Paul, Peter, and all the apostles are in heaven hearing you.
We still have time to repent.

Yeah, how come some of you have to do that? I mean I believe in God, but I don't claim I know who is going to Heaven or not.

 

[nPeace]

Yeah, how come some of you have to do that? I mean I believe in God, but I don't claim I know who is going to Heaven or not.

I believe the Bible. You don't have to.
Free choice. So why do you want all to be like and think like you?