If 'God' is everything and everywhere, there is no 'non-God' for comparison, thus, it is impossible to perceive 'God' directly. It 'God' doesn't exist, it is impossible to perceive 'God' directly.
How can you see evidence of anything, if you're not willing to accept that it exists? Other than my own experiences, I read testimonies everyday about miraculous intercessions and cures. If I wasn't willing to accept they exist, how would I know about them?
My view is that it is more that there are separate realms. Involving science in any question concerning the supernatural (inclding god) makes no sense, as science does not have the capability of answering the questions concerning the supernatural. There are sound reasons for that being the case. Refusing to use science or involve science in questions of the nature of god simply comes from the fact that science can not do that. I'm fine with the QUESTIONS being asked. I'm NOT fine with science being involved in the answers. Obviously, you need to use the vocabulary, the logic, the root assumptions of religion to discuss god. There isn't any doubt about that. On the other hand using the tools of religion to address how our physical world works or using the tools of science to try to address god - those are equally bogus. And, you can not mix and match.
I hate when religious people try to perform misguided mind-reading exersizes on non-religious people. We ask for evidence for God because sane people need to have logical reasons for believing things, or else we can just believe anything and are basically insane. All you have to do is point to books or nations that operate according to these principles. This proves that someone had these ideas in their heads to produce them. You yourself and anyone else can have these ideas in your head right how, and can personally verify to everyone their existence as ideas or concepts. We have examples of nations, remote regions, or tribes that do or have at least temorarily operated according to these principles. I leave it to you to perform the easy and simple google searches to verify them. The idea of flying unicorns obviously exist because you and I are thinking of them right now and can find numerous material showing some people have had this idea. But there is no evidence that flying unicorns exist in reality. Sane people can imagine all sort of crazy things, but as long as we don't accept them as physical reality we remain rational. Another mind-reading exersize. Atheists have many different reasons for not believing in God and critical. Depends on the person you ask. Some people don't believe because of the lack of evidence, others had bad experiences with religion and are angry, others have gone through a lot of pain and can't believe a good God can allow this, others believe science explains everything and there is no need for God. God can only be greater than the tooth fairy if he actually exist. If he is only an idea separate from reality, then he really isn't. Now you may emotionally feel that the idea of God is great, but that is just you being emotional.
My view is that you don't know about them. You've heard stories. But, there is no justification for considering them credible evidence of something so amazing as the supernatural and miricles. There is no way to verify. There is no possibility of testing. The story tellers may have the best of intentions and be really good people, but that's not the issuue. I do not mean to be insulting, but it's like UFOs. We see fuzzy pictures we can't explain, real live evidence! and we decide that there must be aliens flying around us on Earth. But, then the military or whomever published those fuzzy pictures says sorry - they are all total hoaxes. (Actual event.) Do we then stop believing in UFO's? NOPE! Someone says vaccines cause autism. Then huge volumes of evidence are produces showing that is false. AND, the original claim is debunked as an absolute fraud. Do all those who got suckered by the hoax? NOPE! In fact, the bald faced liar continuse being respected as credible!! The whole reason for the rules of science is to address this problem. Our social interactions and religions just doesn't have any such rules.
I certainly am willing to believe God exists, or anything exists, based on actual evidence. A claim is not evidence. How come we do not have intercessions that can be verified -- otherwise stated as why doesn't God heal amputees?
Ok, so let me defend Christians for a moment - LOL! The Bible states that humans can never know god's purpose. And, that does make sense. No human can possibly know the reasoning behind actions a god might take. And, given the model of god testing humans to see if they merrit eternal heavenly bliss it is quite reasonable to assume that life on earth under god's rule wouldn't be comfortable. We'd have to expect that little Jimmy is going to get cancer whether there is a god or isn't a god.
Then you're saying that anything that exists outside of the scientific physical boundaries of our dimension cannot be true. Are you calling my eyes and ears liars?
You better watch out for the miracle and cure claims. There are a lot of "faith healers" in the South who are skilled at tricking people they have been cured, and of course do this for money. This shows that people can easily be fooled into believing they have been cured and this can be manipulated by unscrupulous religious figures. Also, miracle and cure claims are everywhere. The mormons claim it, catholics claim them, protestants, Muslims, Buhhists, Hindus, etc. We also have eyewitness testimony of psychic phenomena and phychic predictions. Also there are many UFO sightings, UFO abduction claims, ghost haunting claims, bigfoot sightings, and much more. The problem with all these claims, is that none of them have been verified by experts and professionals even after hundreds of years. You'd think that someone who had a broken bone healed by prayer would have produced some pretty convincing X-Rays and medical reports and this would be all over the news.
I'm saying that everything outside of our ability to test can not be addressed by sciene. Science is all about testing. We can't test god or whatever else may or may not be out there. In fact, "string theory", multiverse and theoretial physics can not be tested and are thus ouside of what we normally term science - experimental science, scientific method, etc. God and the supernatural are not all that is outside of science. This isn't about attacking religion. Its about drawing a line between science and not science. I'm suggesting that any notion about the supernatural can not be addressed by science - positively or negatively Humans can not test god. I'm sure you would agree.
I think it would be a lot smarter to try to understand God and what He demands of us by examining and analyzing everything He does or doesn't do, instead of making demands on Him as to what He should or shouldn't do? Anyway, God only cares about a person's afterlife, and that they should be with Him when they die. I believe recognition of one's limitations/sins and then repenting for them is key.
WillReadmore never claimed that anything outside of the scientific physical boundaries don't exist. Literally no atheist makes that claim ever. You are assuming God already exists and is perfect in your response. It hasn't been established that God is real or that the ideas of the bible are actually good ones. So its very reasonable to question the bible's claims of God's supposed actions and question whether they really are the actions of a perfect being. What if you don't repent of all your sins? Like what if I forgot one?
I believe everything that we consider supernatural, has an explanation. We just haven't reached that level of knowledge. Then again, maybe we were never meant to reach that level in this world or in the next world. .
I'm OK with that. Humans do not know it all. As for science, some of what has seemed supernatural in the past has become part of our science through our constant examination. At one time, humans could not imagine a virus. We had no idea of the tie between space and time. So, we gradually advance our knowledge in some areas. There is a static line in terms of methodology, but we do extend our knowledge through science in various areas. Obviously, there is still a LOT we don't know. And, I'm very sure that will always be the case. Can you imagine how boring it would be if we had all the answers? My only concern here is that we understand what is science and what is not science - so we don't accidentally mix science and nonscience, since the two don't mix.
How can you learn and understand anything if you don't believe it exists? When we talk of God, we're not talking about a being, but about Creation itself. A Creation which encompasses everything in existence. If you're thinking of the Old Testament, then you should take it in the context of the times. There is no way Pure Creation can negate from His creation or He wouldn't be Pure Creation. The reason God presents Himself as a punishing Father in the OT, is because it's the only way people could understand the consequences of their actions at that time and place. Those consequences holds true today as well.
This is an interesting difference. In science, one doesn't accept the existence of something without testing. Scientists created stuff like microscopes, particle colliders, telescopes, etc. to verify suspicions they had or just to look to see what is going on. Evidence. Remember the Higgs Boson (sometimes called the "god particle" for no good reason)? Theoretical physicists used known physics and math to deduce there probably was a particle like that. But, for decades it was not considered as part of science. There just wasn't any actual evidence, because the technology for testing was beyond human capability at the time. Then a super collider was created that could detect whether such a particle exists. Those postulating that particle turned out to be right, so now physicists accepts that there is such a particle. Before, they did not. That's a different process than religion uses. In science, faith was not involved. Skepticism reigned until serious evidence arrived. In religion, you are betting a LOT on there being elements of the supernatural for which faith is the only possible approach. In fact, the Bible says that faith is the only possibility.
Are you kidding me? Every few weeks I remember something that I shouldn't have done. I feel as though I'm the worse sinner in the world. I think what's important, is to be in a state of repentance before death. Otherwise a person's pride might hinder them from uniting with God.
I have learned a lot about the Star Wars universe, yet I don't believe it exists. Don't pull this pantheist stuff on me. 99% of people use the word 'God' to be a person, an intelligence. Don't be confusing and use that word for something completely different. Use a different word instead, like just "creation." Creation isn't God, creation is the act of God. I get that tough love is sometimes necessary. But stoning gays, or stoning people who pick up sticks on the sabbath is going a bit too far.
Isn't it a bit disturbing that you are forgetting stuff you did weeks ago and you completely forgot about them? Who knows what you aren't remembering. So I think we can agree that it isn't necessary to repent for every specific little thing you did because its easy for a few to fall through the cracks. If all you need to be is generally repentant before death, then that means you can live a life of hedonism and debauchery and totally get away with it. There are some problems with this approach too obviously. My perspective is a bit radical. Philosophers and theologians have explored the topic of morality for thousands of years and have written countless tomes on the subject. Yet we haven't seen a single piece of good evidence for objective morality. So maybe there is no objective right or wrong, nothing to atone for, nothing to be forgiven for. Live that life of debauchery, but repent when you are about to die, just in case the myths are true.
The whole point of the Pragmatic school of thinking is to talk about philosophic or religious topics using language in a way that avoids the language of religion or traditional philosophy. There are, of course, separate 'realms'. You don't talk religion in a physics class, or atheism in a church. But there is a metaphorical commons, which is where this is being discussed. There the two clash routinely.
Most atheists didn't do a single proof, didn't see a single evidence in their life time while their brain is fed with everything in this world. Atheists please tell us when was the last time you actually proved anything! Atheists are those delusional and living in dreams. The above is the solid proof! That said. God is not a claim. God, like history, is a result of human testimonies. God doesn't show up publicly because there's a covenant saying that men need to be saved by faith. Thus God's truth is conveyed in the same way as everything else which no one needs to prove, just like how everything else fed in the brain of atheists without them doing a single proof. To put it another way, God follows the same rule as how humans in majority receive facts, humans (the majority) feed their own brain with everything without them doing a single proof, simply because they don't fundamentally get facts from proof nor evidence. Get a clue!
I'm a bit confused over your interpretation of time. Your suggestion of someone sitting through eternity and then deciding to stand smacks to me not of an entity outside of time, but one that exists in time (they just exist in all of time). It seems to me your conclusion that a choice needs to be made implies that the choice is made from inside of time. If a creating force exists outside of time, then it can simply define a starting point of in-universe time. If it is so, then we don't need to justify why this force didn't do it again (i.e. justify why its eternalness or timelessness doesn't manifest inside the universe and its timeline). Asking "how can the cause exist without the effect" seems to imply that we have some notion of in-universe time that somehow applies to the causing force. In this hypothetical, any creative force. I'm not sure what it is you're referring to here. I'm going to assume this is an answer to my disagreement to every possible thing must occur. We have other constraints on us than time, for instance energy and entropy. If we reach the heat-death of the universe, you can add an eternity of time, but you'll never get a second chance for things to happen that could only happen when you had some entropy yet to gain. I'm not sure I follow this. It seems to me that if you limit time, that at least opens for an absolute view of time. I also don't quite understand why it, either way, would be a problem for limiting time. I'm also not sure what you refer to when you say "that is an implication of the argument". There is clearly some logic missing between the assertion of a T=0 (which I might agree with) and the personal agent. How about some mindless concept which simply points to arbitrary points in time. It seems to me that the only thing you require a mind for is to anchor time in some way (or things that happen in time). It is not clear to me that that requires a mind any more than it could use a mind-less something, that has some form of spontaneous symmetry breaking. Why would it be a problem? What are the features that you require of a mind, and how do you justify saying nothing else can have those features? It seems to me the ability to suddenly choose to stand up from sitting is the effect of a "temporal" mind, not the general concept of a mind. Indeed, I'm not convinced we have free will either, the machinations of the mind is simply hidden to us. As such, the arbitrariness that the mind can come up with are not exclusive to the mind.
Thats certainly a fair point. However, the less rigorous nature of that commons does seem to be the actual source of a meaningful amount of the contention. In my view the tension that exists between religion and science is a very real problem of its own. The existence of that tension certainly parallels the divide on accepting science as a source of information in our decision making on topics of education, medicine, etc., let alone questions of religion. Every time I see a "prove there is a god" thread I cringe. Science has nothing to contribute to anything within the supernatural,. And, religion assumes god is a fundamental tenet - or, it's some philosophical argument that goes beyond the commons. Religion and science don't even share a concept of evidence. We have to learn to live together. Mixing religion and science is how to create pointless controversy.
Some of the claims of religion can be tested: does prayer work, the 'miracles' at Lourdes, the legitimacy of relics, the historic truth of the bible - the Ark etc. If these are excluded then certainly science has nothing to say about supernatural events, if there are any.
