Why don't Theist's admit that there's no evidence for God?

[Philomath]

As an agnostic theist I always notice other theist's attempting to prove God in one way or another. These arguments are never sufficient or conclusive enough to prove God. I recognize that my position is irrational and that there is no evidence for God. If you already have faith in God, what is the need to attempt to prove him?

 

[Riverwolf]

I recognize the lack of evidence, but I'm secure enough in my own beliefs that I don't have an emotional need to justify myself to others.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Because it hits them in the core of their argument and its not something they want to admit. They usually openly admit to lack of scientific evidence but it is then rationalized by saying there is no "need" for scientific evidence as there is a pletura of "spiritual" evidence. Because remember...the study of everything is limited to a tiny tiny tiny focused area of the universe

 

[Riverwolf]

Because it hits them in the core of their argument and its not something they want to admit. They usually openly admit to lack of scientific evidence but it is then rationalized by saying there is no "need" for scientific evidence as there is a pletura of "spiritual" evidence. Because remember...the study of everything is limited to a tiny tiny tiny focused area of the universe

And of course the classic "I don't know what that is, therefore ALIENS!!!"

 

[Quintessence]

Some theists fuss over this because some non-theists goad them into it. But more importantly, it happens because our current cultural norms are grounded in post-Enlightenment values. Call it cultural and peer pressure, if you will. The question of proof and evidence is demanded of us in this arena because of culture.

What troubles me about this trend is that evidence and proofs is often left ill-defined or narrowly hedged in a way that sets the path before one even begins to walk. Put another way, the standards for what "evidence" and "proof" is completely defines the answer you arrive at. Usually folks in my culture really mean "empirical evidence" when they say "evidence" and dismiss all the other forms as irrelevant or not good enough. Which is kind of silly, because god-concepts in general are simply not empirical, they're conceptual. Non-empirical evidence is extremely relevant, and will tell you far more about a particular theist's theism than demanding they produce something that for most of them is impossible in the first place. In general I find that in many cases where proof is demanded, the point is being missed... particularly in spats between theists and non-theists.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

And of course the classic "I don't know what that is, therefore ALIENS!!!"

Indeed that happens. A lot of arguments that have been made are made from the point of a fallacy. Some have made good arguments but never a convincing one to support conversion.

 

[Willamena]

Why don't Theist's admit that there's no evidence for God?

They do. Because more often that there's no evidence for God is their selling point.

 

[ignition]

Of course there's evidence.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Some theists fuss over this because some non-theists goad them into it. But more importantly, it happens because our current cultural norms are grounded in post-Enlightenment values. Call it cultural and peer pressure, if you will. The question of proof and evidence is demanded of us in this arena because of culture.

What troubles me about this trend is that evidence and proofs is often left ill-defined or narrowly hedged in a way that sets the path before one even begins to walk. Put another way, the standards for what "evidence" and "proof" is completely defines the answer you arrive at. Usually folks in my culture really mean "empirical evidence" when they say "evidence" and dismiss all the other forms as irrelevant or not good enough. Which is kind of silly, because god-concepts in general are simply not empirical, they're conceptual. Non-empirical evidence is extremely relevant, and will tell you far more about a particular theist's theism than demanding they produce something that for most of them is impossible in the first place. In general I find that in many cases where proof is demanded, the point is being missed... particularly in spats between theists and non-theists.

Can you give an example of this non-empirical evidence for God?

 

[Quintessence]

Can you give an example of this non-empirical evidence for God?

Forms of evidence?

--> Empirical (aka, physical "stuff")
--> Experiential (aka, personal experiences, testimonies, and anecdotes)
--> Logical (aka, formalized argumentation, deduction, inference)
--> Intuitive (aka, gnosis, enlightenment, revelation)

I might be missing something. Our society is so fixated on the empirical form we tend to forget about and/or ignore all the other ones. Or flat out deny that they're valid forms of evidence, especially the last one.

 

[ignition]

Can you give an example of this non-empirical evidence for God?

There are countless examples but obviously I would be biased in favour of Islam. If you looked at other religions I'm sure there's something to investigate.

 

[ignition]

Forms of evidence?

--> Empirical (aka, physical "stuff")
--> Experiential (aka, personal experiences, testimonies, and anecdotes)
--> Logical (aka, formalized argumentation, deduction, inference)
--> Intuitive (aka, gnosis, enlightenment, revelation)

I might be missing something. Our society is so fixated on the empirical form we tend to forget about and/or ignore all the other ones. Or flat out deny that they're valid forms of evidence, especially the last one.

Actually all those forms of evidence is generally accepted, except when it comes to God. That's where the more militant Atheists harden their position because of their unwillingness to accept God's existence. They have no problem accepting the multiverse theory, the idea that aliens perhaps began life on earth etc. etc.but God? Oh no.

 

[Willamena]

Forms of evidence?

--> Empirical (aka, physical "stuff")
--> Experiential (aka, personal experiences, testimonies, and anecdotes)
--> Logical (aka, formalized argumentation, deduction, inference)
--> Intuitive (aka, gnosis, enlightenment, revelation)

I might be missing something. Our society is so fixated on the empirical form we tend to forget about and/or ignore all the other ones. Or flat out deny that they're valid forms of evidence, especially the last one.

Just the opposite: our society holds the empirical to be evidenced, and so those who call for the empirical as evidence are implying something other.

 

[Quintessence]

Just the opposite: our society holds the empirical to be evidenced, and so those who call for the empirical as evidence are implying something other.

I'm not sure I follow you here. Could you elaborate?

Also, my bad for not specifying that those last few words in my post were intended to specifically pertain to god-concepts given that's the topic of this thread. I think that in our daily lives, we're hardly fixated on empirical evidence, but when it comes to god-concepts, suddenly it's the empirical litmus test or bust in many instances.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Some theists fuss over this because some non-theists goad them into it. But more importantly, it happens because our current cultural norms are grounded in post-Enlightenment values. Call it cultural and peer pressure, if you will. The question of proof and evidence is demanded of us in this arena because of culture.

There would be no demands for proof if there was a unanimous admission that there is none.

 

[Sleeppy]

To say that there is no evidence, is completely ignorant. The varying orientations come from the acceptances and denials of certain evidences, and the conclusions attached. There is no absence of evidence.

 

[Philomath]

To say that there is no evidence, is completely ignorant. The varying orientations come from the acceptances and denials of certain evidences, and the conclusions attached. There is no absence of evidence.

What evidence is there? Would you like to provide some?

 

[Willamena]

I'm not sure I follow you here. Could you elaborate?

You're not "missing something," and I support what you said. For someone to call for empirical evidence is for them to ignore all other kinds of evidence, and hence to be disingenuous. It's a call to scientism.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

As an agnostic theist I always notice other theist's attempting to prove God in one way or another.

Did you perchance note whence some of the origins for such "proofs" come? For example, the "first cause" argument, still invoked to day, was (so far as we know) first formulated by a polytheist named Aristotle. While Plato too offered potential fruit for the scholastics, those like Anselm and Aquinas seem to have cared little for Plato and concentrated on adapting Aristotle's proofs.

Also note that "proof" is not used by scientists for the most part but within closed discourse worlds: mathematical spaces with agreed upon axioms and operators, formal languages with agreed upon axioms and/or justifications (modus ponendo ponens, non tertium datur, etc.). Nor is it something we find as any sort of universal but (like writing systems) seems to have a fairly singular history from the Greeks to the Muslims to the scholastics (yes, other cultures developed counting systems and sometimes even some pretty sophisticated algorithms, but like science, mathematics isn't simply the development of some tool but a system).

Basically, these proofs are following not only a tradition that isn't theistic in origin but a systematic and formal thought process which was later transformed into various notational systems and innumerable fields of mathematics. The most famous were around before Jesus, had nothing to do with either Judaism or early Christianity, and didn't get very far until algebra was stolen by the early modern West. And even then, we aren't done. Because not only were the founders of modern science interested in understanding God's works to understand God, they were developing the formal languages necessary to do so (like Liebniz' notation relative to Newton's), and eventually the hope was that the entirety of mathematical science (as it was generally considered to be a science at that time) would be axiomized into a single formal logic. Frege thought he had done this, and was preparing to publish his second work when Bertrand Russell kindly informed him of an error that made the entire system inadequate. Russell, however, received the same (and after far more work; trust me when I say that the three volumes he and Whitehead wrote are densely packed with few explanatory remarks).
Kurt Gödel didn't just show that Russell and Whitehead failed. He proved that the entire hope for an axiomatic mathematics was fruitless. Perhaps the greatest logician of all time, I mention him and this tradition because not only did Gödel offer his own proof of God, but believed that the very thing he had proved to be logically impossible existed for God.

The university system was begun to educate priests, and even in the US most of the older universities (including tiny little places like Harvard) were Christian universities. The connection between universities and religious offices remained for a very long time, and the focus on religious studies remained well beyond the period in which physics and mathematics was mostly about understanding God's works. Is it any wonder that a nearly 2,400 year old tradition that our entire educational system was built upon hasn't quite shed itself of this tendency?

These arguments are never sufficient or conclusive enough to prove God. I recognize that my position is irrational and that there is no evidence for God. If you already have faith in God, what is the need to attempt to prove him?

Why do we have a fiddler on the roof?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You're not "missing something," and I support what you said. For someone to call for empirical evidence is for them to ignore all other kinds of evidence, and hence to be disingenuous. It's a call to scientism.

Might I humbly note that while the thread title speaks of evidence, the OP speaks of proof. The former is broader than the latter, and the latter need not be empirical. In fact, it is commonly agreed that it cannot be empirical.