There is no acceptable proof of God for atheists

chozometroid

Wicknight wrote: »

Try me.



No, searching the truth is understanding that you can't know the Christian God is not lying.

Closing yourself off to that possibility simply because the outcome of it doesn't offer you anything is not searching for truth, it is searching for comfort.


None of this is scientific Chozometroid. If we were being scientific we wouldn't even think your god exists in the first place since that has never been demonstrated to scientific standards

You have already taken the massive leap into believing that your god exists based on personal revelation (quite unscientific), and then you take another leap into believing he is was he claims to be.

So what now? God might be lying....I guess I should abandon my faith. I trusted Him before and He came through, but I guess since He could be lying about some things, it would be a good idea to stop trusting in Him. I believe in Him existing, and find that His plan makes sense of it all, but that gives me no reason to believe He is what He claims to be.

I'm glad you gave me this deep insight.

You can stop pretending that your belief is well supported and atheists have no good reason for not believing you are imagining it all. That would be nice.

You are be right. We are just a collection of atoms declared to have special value because some of our atoms decided to arrange and create sentience.
The human imagination has come up with this idea of a creator God that explains everything, from our origins to why we have real standards of right and wrong, all because we have a distate for the alternative, which is the acceptance that we know nothing, but hope that we'll find out a little more in the future, while never knowing the truth.

Turtwig

chozometroid wrote: »

You are be right. We are just a collection of atoms declared to have special value because some of our atoms decided to arrange and create sentience.
The human imagination has come up with this idea of a creator God that explains everything, from our origins to why we have real standards of right and wrong, all because we have a distate for the alternative, which is the acceptance that we know nothing, but hope that we'll find out a little more in the future, while never knowing the truth.

And it was from that very realisation, that the Chozo spread forth to understand the cosmos : spreading the light of hope through the darkness of space. In their search of the truth.

You, and I, may be paraphrasing a bit, but it seems you are finally living up to name.:)

rccaulfield

chozometroid wrote: »

If I was to stop with those basic things (universe, our nature, etc) then yes, other gods which are claimed to have a part in those would be supported by them.
Now, the Christian God makes much more specific claims. God claims to have cast Satan and a third of the angels to the earth, flood the world,

Are you seriously saying in this day and age that there was a global flood some time over 2000 years ago that left no mark anywhere at all?

Turtwig

rccaulfield wrote: »

Are you seriously saying in this day and age that there was a global flood some time over 2000 years ago that left no mark anywhere at all?

Ahh c'mon off it rc, The tale of Gilgameish said so:)

chozometroid

rccaulfield wrote: »

Are you seriously saying in this day and age that there was a global flood some time over 2000 years ago that left no mark anywhere at all?

Yes to the flood. No to the "left no mark" statement.
On a side note, your signature made me lol. Thanks for that.

Turtwig

chozometroid wrote: »

Yes to the flood. No to the "left no mark" statement.
On a side note, your signature made me lol. Thanks for that.

Emm it's pretty much being established that there was no such flood.
Neptunism is dead with hundreds of years.

chozometroid

Malty_T wrote: »

Emm it's pretty much being established that there was no such flood.
Neptunism is dead with hundreds of years.

Well, this is not the Creationism thread, and that's not the main point of this thread.
I'm sure many Christians reject the global flood.

Turtwig

chozometroid wrote: »

Well, this is not the Creationism thread, and that's not the main point of this thread.
I'm sure many Christians reject the global flood.

It's not, but I've just said there is no such 'mark' left.
Would you agree yes or no? And to what extent?

Zombrex

chozometroid wrote: »

So what now? God might be lying....I guess I should abandon my faith.

Faith has got nothing to do with it. If it makes you happy believing in your god go ahead, but it would be helpful for the rest of us if religious people realised that it is just personal opinion of theirs, not some demonstratable fact.

chozometroid wrote: »

I'm glad you gave me this deep insight.

I'm not sure you have taken any insight from this, but your welcome :pac:

ChocolateSauce

What would prove god for me?

If the subtle and mysterious nature of existence, from the quantum level to the span of the universe, was neatly explained with a single, grand unifying theory which could be empirically measured and tested.

If (when?) this is ever done, I would accept it as the alpha and the omega.

Turtwig

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

What would prove god for me?

If the subtle and mysterious nature of existence, from the quantum level to the span of the universe, was neatly explained with a single, grand unifying theory which could be empirically measured and tested.

If (when?) this is ever done, I would accept it as the alpha and the omega.

The standard model is pretty darn close I'd say, just got find the missing scot and gravy..:P

komodosp

Haven't time to read through the whole thread tonight but just a quick reply to the OP... (Sorry if this has been covered already will review tomorrow)

You might be right but you make your point in an unfair way. For one thing I would think if God really has infinite wisdom and ability he could come up with a definitive proof.

In any case, if a Doctor called... say Doctor Godfrey Godly came and cured some previously incurable disease like AIDS using some secret research he had conducted or stem cells or something... "Call me God for short" would you suppose his divinity?

Or to put it another way, if Derren Brown claimed to be God and did his lottery prediction trick as proof, would you accept him as the Almighty?

Remember Atheists aren't the only sceptics... Christians and Atheists are equally sceptical about every issue except God - which seems to be off-limits for debate for some reason. For every other subject, Christians would need just as much proof as Atheists.
(And on that subject Christians are way more sceptical, with their refusal to consider that God does not exist.)

bSlick

PDN wrote: »

8. I have seen my prayers answered on numerous occasions and in very specific ways - sometimes down to receiving an amount of money I prayed for to the exact euro (922 on one occasion) or something unexpected happening when, to the very minute, I was praying for that situation. Of course those with a vested interest in arguing against God will say these are coincidences - but my experience over 29 years has been that the more I pray, the more such coincidences happen.

You cite prayers being answered as an example of proof of god. Yet what about all the people down the years who were in need of much more than financial help and received no intervention from god? I presume there were hundreds/thousands praying for help in the twin towers on 9/11 and millions around the world praying for them yet what was the end result? Everyone trapped in the towers died. Yet god sorted you out with 922 euro. So if God answering your prayers for financial help is an example of proof of his existence isn't the fact that there was no help for the people in the twin towers, or the millions of Christians suffering in extreme hardship all over the world and praying every day for help evidence that there is no God? Or is there some special reason why he helps you and ignores others?

Turtwig

bSlick wrote: »

You cite prayers being answered as an example of proof of god. Yet what about all the people down the years who were in need of much more than financial help and received no intervention from god? I presume there were hundreds/thousands praying for help in the twin towers on 9/11 and millions around the world praying for them yet what was the end result? Everyone trapped in the towers died. Yet god sorted you out with 922 euro. So if God answering your prayers for financial help is an example of proof of his existence isn't the fact that there was no help for the people in the twin towers, or the millions of Christians suffering in extreme hardship all over the world and praying every day for help evidence that there is no God? Or is there some special reason why he helps you and ignores others?

In fairness,

S/he wasn't giving it as literal evidence, s/he was just showing that s/he wasn't going on blind faith alone.

PDN

bSlick wrote: »

You cite prayers being answered as an example of proof of god. Yet what about all the people down the years who were in need of much more than financial help and received no intervention from god? I presume there were hundreds/thousands praying for help in the twin towers on 9/11 and millions around the world praying for them yet what was the end result? Everyone trapped in the towers died. Yet god sorted you out with 922 euro. So if God answering your prayers for financial help is an example of proof of his existence isn't the fact that there was no help for the people in the twin towers, or the millions of Christians suffering in extreme hardship all over the world and praying every day for help evidence that there is no God? Or is there some special reason why he helps you and ignores others?

I think you're trying to pull us off topic.

As far as evidence is concerned, which is what I was posting about, all that is irrelevant.

No Christian claims that God answers every prayer. I had a handicapped child that I prayed to be healed every day, but they still died.

However, the nature of evidence is that one piece of evidence is more powerful than a thousand pieces of missing evidence.

For example, let's say that I was investigating to see whether a rare species of jaguar lives in an Amazonian forest. I visit the forest 100 times to try to find the jaguar. On 99 visits I fail to see the jaguar, but on 1 visit I clearly see and identify the jaguar.

Now, how do we weigh this evidence. Is the one time that I clearly saw the jaguar invalidated by the 99 times that I didn't see it? Of course not. And why? Because one piece of actual evidence is more powerful than a million arguments from silence.

Or, to use another example. Let's say that 40% of people who eat a certain mushroom drop dead within 5 minutes of eating it. Should we ignore this fact because 60% of people ate the mushroom without suffering ill effects? I think not. We would see the 40% (or even 5%) as sufficient evidence to see the mushroom as dangerous.

So, some actions are, by their very nature, much more convincing than other actions or non-actions. Miracles are often so convincing that only one of them is required. If I had been present when Jesus walked on water, then that would be pretty convincing to me. It would in no way be negated by the fact that for every other day of my life I never saw anyone walk on water.

Most answers to prayer are less convincing than someone walking on water, so if they only happened once or twice then we could reasonably ascribe them to coincidence. It is theoretically possible that I could pray for 922 euro on Friday and then somebody should, quite coincidentally give me 922 euro on Sunday. Such coincidences are extremely rare, but they do happen.
The testimony of many Christians, including myself, is that these kind of coincidences happen sufficiently often to make it virtually impossible for us to believe they happpened accidentally.

Let's go back to our criminal defence attorney to illustrate this. He may argue that the accused's fingerprints were on the murder victim's throat because of an accidental contact on the subway earlier in the day. That is possible, if unlikely. A juror may well be inclined to give the guy a break based on the fact that such coincidences can happen. But what if there are three murder victims and his fingerprints are on all their throats? It is theoretically possible that he could have had accidental contact with all three victims earlier in the day - but that is much much harder for any juror to believe. We reach a stage where it stretches credultity too much to keep ascribing stuff to coincidence.

Btw, your argument about 9/11 etc is fatally flawed. Plenty of people were trapped in the towers and then escaped. Plenty of people were in the towers earlier in the day but were not trapped. Plenty of people were supposed to be in the twin towers that day but, because of some mishap, were late for work and so survived. Quite simply, you have no idea how many people's lives were saved through prayer that day. Your position seems to be that unless prayer works 100% of the time then it is unreasonable to say that prayer ever works.

Turtwig

PDN wrote: »

Btw, your argument about 9/11 etc is fatally flawed. Plenty of people were trapped in the towers and then escaped. Plenty of people were in the towers earlier in the day but were not trapped. Plenty of people were supposed to be in the twin towers that day but, because of some mishap, were late for work and so survived. Quite simply, you have no idea how many people's lives were saved through prayer that day. Your position seems to be that unless prayer works 100% of the time then it is unreasonable to say that prayer ever works.

While I understand and accept the rest of your point, I just cannot let this bit go..

You just gave a fairly poor representation of what happened in those towers.
So let's consider this, the hijackers prayed just before hitting the towers. After the North Tower was hit, the people in South Tower began evacuation. Only moments later they were told that the building was secure and that they could return to their offices and, not surprisingly, most of them did so. Pretty tragic really, they were out of the building and then went back in to die later. Now back to the South Tower, because of the way the stairwells were covered in smoke, people above the impact level headed to the roof of the building for an anticipated air rescue;a rescue that was never possible. Sadly, the same became true for the North Tower too. Due to unfortunate panic, unfortunate failings in the PA system many people perished that shouldn't have.

*There are few more unfortunate events that I can't remember offhand, but rest assured I'd say prayers from both sides were answered, if not, none at all.

rccaulfield

chozometroid wrote: »

Yes to the flood. No to the "left no mark" statement.
On a side note, your signature made me lol. Thanks for that.

Ok 2 things from the top of my head(from literally millions of supporting facts against the flood)-
Anyway id appreciate your views on these-
1. Dendochronology-tree ring dating! If for some reason you are skeptical about the various forms of dating, tree ring dating cannot be denied- it spans back unbroken for 11,500 years(its there for all to see!) After that the record begins to have gaps naturally enough but these gaps are closed as the months go by-anyway-...... no global/continental or major flood at all recorded in the seaon rings.
2.-Ok as an example i'll take the lemurs on the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa. There are 37 different species of Lemur on this island(plus some extinct ones).They range in size from a hamster to larger then a Gorilla-(recently extinct!) And they are all-every last one of them, in Madagascar and there alone. Nowhere else in the entire planet will you find a species of lemur. How on earth could this have happened? Did all 37 species of Lemurs leave Noah's ark- make a burst straight for this island-leaving not a single soldier behind the length and breadth of Africa?

chozometroid

rccaulfield wrote: »

Ok 2 things from the top of my head(from literally millions of supporting facts against the flood)-
Anyway id appreciate your views on these-
1. Dendochronology-tree ring dating! If for some reason you are skeptical about the various forms of dating, tree ring dating cannot be denied- it spans back unbroken for 11,500 years(its there for all to see!) After that the record begins to have gaps naturally enough but these gaps are closed as the months go by-anyway-...... no global/continental or major flood at all recorded in the seaon rings.
2.-Ok as an example i'll take the lemurs on the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa. There are 37 different species of Lemur on this island(plus some extinct ones).They range in size from a hamster to larger then a Gorilla-(recently extinct!) And they are all-every last one of them, in Madagascar and there alone. Nowhere else in the entire planet will you find a species of lemur. How on earth could this have happened? Did all 37 species of Lemurs leave Noah's ark- make a burst straight for this island-leaving not a single soldier behind the length and breadth of Africa?

This is not the creationism thread, but can you provide the source for the tree ring data?

Also, the lemur point does nothing to support evolution or creationism.

lugha

An important consideration when assessing how someone interprets evidence is the matter of whether or not they care one way or the other what they ultimately find to be true. And this I would suggest is a problem believers have. It matters intently to them that there is a God. It goes to the core of the meaning of their existence. I would suggest that it is all but impossible for them to be in any way detached and objective when assessing evidence. It is interesting that atheists have been likened to defense attorneys. In reality the similarity with believers is much closer. Both have very firm views on which way they are going to be interpreting the evidence, possibly even before they even see the evidence. It is also interesting the way atheists are sometimes viewed by believers as argumentative stubborn types who almost by rote, will contest every scintilla of evidence for a God. It is easy to get the impression that some believers think that atheists would be down right miffed if it turned out that there was a God! The difficulty with this of course is that it makes absolutely no sense. I think few would be content with the few decades they get of life, and nothing more, if they had a choice in the matter. Personally I would be absolutely thrilled if the promise of eternal life that I believed as a child were to be true (or perhaps not as it seems as a former Christian, I would be hell bound!). But when I set aside what I fervently wanted to be true (a very, very difficult task) and consider objectively the question, God or no, then the answer screams out at you.

chozometroid

lugha wrote: »

But when I set aside what I fervently wanted to be true (a very, very difficult task) and consider objectively the question, God or no, then the answer screams out at you.

Really? So I guess you are content in knowing the answer to this one question, and not to any of the questions regarding how or why the universe came to be. You believe we are here because of some theorized imaginative intital condition before the Big Bang occured?

Why is it that space, time, and the potential for life arose out of this singularity? Where did the information come from? Why did this mess of spacetime and energy just spring into existence at some "time" in the past? It was there, waiting? No, impossible. It happened as soon as it was. It is not even chance that caused that initial explosion to eventually result in intelligent life. It was destined to happen from the moment that the information/potential was even there. There was no other way it could have gone from the moment it all began.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe something like this would or could happen without being specified and without a causative agent. If it's even believable, then God is as well.

Turtwig

chozometroid wrote: »

Really? So I guess you are content in knowing the answer to this one question, and not to any of the questions regarding how or why the universe came to be. You believe we are here because of some theorized imaginative intital condition before the Big Bang occured?

Why is it that space, time, and the potential for life arose out of this singularity? Where did the information come from? Why did this mess of spacetime and energy just spring into existence at some "time" in the past? It was there, waiting? No, impossible. It happened as soon as it was. It is not even chance that caused that initial explosion to eventually result in intelligent life. It was destined to happen from the moment that the information/potential was even there. There was no other way it could have gone from the moment it all began.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe something like this would or could happen without being specified and without a causative agent. If it's even believable, then God is as well.

You really don't understand us at all do you?
We are not afraid to answer to some questions with the answer :
WE.DO.NOT.KNOW! (I would like to add there are many theories though:))

Why does it have to have a cause, Chozo why?
You speak of a causative agent, but why should there be one?
Where's all this destiny crap coming from too,if it was designed to begin, how do you know? While it might please you think somethings have a cause, they might not?
Answer : WE DO NOT KNOW

chozometroid

Malty_T wrote: »

You really don't understand us at all do you?
We are not afraid to answer to some questions with the answer :
WE.DO.NOT.KNOW! (I would like to add there are many theories though:))

Why does it have to have a cause, Chozo why?
You speak of a causative agent, but why should there be one?
Where's all this destiny crap coming from too,if it was designed to begin, how do you know? While it might please you think somethings have a cause, they might not?
Answer : WE DO NOT KNOW

From the materialist, it seems inescapable that intelligent life was destined to happen from the moment this singularity existed. Things just took their course as they naturally do.

rccaulfield

chozometroid wrote: »

This is not the creationism thread, but can you provide the source for the tree ring data?

Also, the lemur point does nothing to support evolution or creationism.

The source? Whats the source of water-its there! I got the exact date from the book i'm reading at the moment-Richard Dawkins-The greatest show on earth!
Well the lemur point is about your flood! Care to comment- Yea i appreciate its not the creationist thread but sometimes things go slightly off-topic, no harm, sure back on topic after youv replied hopefully!;)

EDit- sources for dendochronolgogy- Sice computers started logging the rings the database has accelerated back in time rapidly!
Ferguson CW, Graybill DA (1983). "Dendrochronology of Bristlecone Pine: A Progress Report". Radiocarbon 25: 287–288.

Also
Stuiver Minze, Kromer Bernd, Becker Bernd, Ferguson CW (1986). "Radiocarbon Age Calibration back to 13,300 Years BP and the 14C Age Matching of the German Oak and US Bristlecone Pine Chronologies". Radiocarbon 28 (2): 969–979.

Turtwig

chozometroid wrote: »

. Things just took their course as they naturally do.

Yeah but designed life???
You gotta be kidding me it took the organisms of earth over 3 billion years to become multi celled. That's not very intelligent in my book
(I think, biologists feel free to correct me)

rccaulfield

Malty_T wrote: »

Yeah but designed life???
You gotta be kidding me it took the organisms of earth over 3 billion years to become multi celled. That's not very intelligent in my book
(I think, biologists feel free to correct me)

The oldest ancient fossil microbe-like objects are dated to be 3.5 Ga (billion years old), just a few hundred million years younger than Earth itself;)

lugha

chozometroid wrote: »

Really? So I guess you are content in knowing the answer to this one question, and not to any of the questions regarding how or why the universe came to be. You believe we are here because of some theorized imaginative intital condition before the Big Bang occured?

Why is it that space, time, and the potential for life arose out of this singularity? Where did the information come from? Why did this mess of spacetime and energy just spring into existence at some "time" in the past? It was there, waiting? No, impossible. It happened as soon as it was. It is not even chance that caused that initial explosion to eventually result in intelligent life. It was destined to happen from the moment that the information/potential was even there. There was no other way it could have gone from the moment it all began.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe something like this would or could happen without being specified and without a causative agent. If it's even believable, then God is as well.

As Malty has pointed out that, if we do not yet know the answers to some of the big questions then we are quite content to say so.
Anyway the point I was making has more to do with the objectivity of those interpreting the evidence rather than anything to
do with the evidence itself. If David Begg were to make an argument for wage restraint or Declan Ganly were to argue in favour
of Lisbon then the will have a credibility that they would not have if they were to make, as they more usually do, the contrary
argument. Because they are making a case for something when they would clearly prefer that such a case did not exist.If you make
the case that something is not so, but you wished were to be so, then surely you can claim to be more objective that someone who is arguing to be true, something that they could not countenace not being true?

CerebralCortex

chozometroid wrote: »

From the materialist, it seems inescapable that intelligent life was destined to happen from the moment this singularity existed. Things just took their course as they naturally do.

So you're a hard determinist? That contradicts christianity. Am I wrong?

Determinism (philosophy) a philosophical theory holding that all events are inevitable consequences of antecedent sufficient causes; often understood as denying the possibility of free will.

wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Mods, apologies for bring in free will here.

Turtwig

CerebralCortex wrote: »

So you're a hard determinist? That contradicts christianity. Am I wrong?

Determinism (philosophy) a philosophical theory holding that all events are inevitable consequences of antecedent sufficient causes; often understood as denying the possibility of free will.

wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Mods, apologies for bring in free will here.

Nah, I think s/he was arguing that the materialist is a hard determinist..even though I, (and I assume most others) acknowledge that the universe and everything outside it is largely indeterminant.

Fanny Cradock

rccaulfield wrote: »

.
The rest of your statements e.g. no.8 - I invite you to do double blind trials to see the effectiveness of your prayer and what part you play in the outcome of your prayer coming true.

And how do you propose that you do a double blind trial on a specific prayer?

Linus67

The fact that we are here proves that God exists. And anyone who does not believe in God will not get into Heaven.