"There's no proof for your God," this is the refrain perennially voiced by atheists on every message board every single day. J.D. Walters, on the CADRE blog, has done a piece comparing this problem to smoking. He acknowledges that he is sometimes dissatisfied with the level of proof, but there is proof enough that smoking is harmful and people who know that it is can't or wont stop. I find this very non apt as an analogy. The problem is people who understand that smoking is harmful either, want to stop and can't or they don't want to stop but do realize that it's harmful. Few smokers actually still believe it's not harmful. Atheists are not exactly in this same predicament. Some atheist want to believe in God but struggle because they only want to bleieve on their terms, that is if the evidence is overwhelming and they can't argue with it. Most atheists have bought into the line that there is no scientific proof for God. That is a crucial draw back because once they accept he premise that scinece is the only form of knowledge then they never have to believe. So the atheist opinion leaders construct this huge ideolgoical edifice around the concept that science is the only way to know what's real, and there's no scientific evidence for God so there can't be a good or you can't ever find him so it must not be a big deal. That's not like smokers. If we examine the edifice of that ideological construct we soon realize it's a trick and crumbles.
The point is a lot more complex. The atheist assertion the evidence isn't good enough is based entirely upon their refusal to accept the perimeters of evidence that theists accept. We have two different worlds going. Theists and atheists live in different worlds. Atheists think about the Question of God as just adding a fact to the universe. It's just one more thin, scinece is the only form of knowledge, if there is no absolute scientific proof so strong they can't argue whit it then it's not proved and it's worth thinking about because the only form knowledge has to be absolute and obvious. They want to be totally and utterly forced to believe by the power of absolute proof.
God is not just adding a fact to the universe. The God embedded universe is not just a universe exactly like the atheists except it has God in it. It's a universe where subjective human experience is the only form of human experience, where science is not the only form of knowledge, where inner life counts too. If I'm right about God, then God doesn't want one to find "him" through absolute scientific evidence that can't be refitted. If that were the case God would be subjugated to human understanding. If we could have scientific evidence that proved God then God would have to be objectified and we would be in control because as the subjects we control the data and the knowledge that gives us any object of our scrutiny. That's why reductionism works by the game of losing phenomena. The whole point of reducing is to eliminate aspects that you can't control. God is not fool, and God would be a fool if he allowed himself to become an object of scientific proof, because to do he would be competency at the disposal of humanity in terms of setting the perimeters for understanding. The way God does it we have to go to him. We have to surrender our wills we have to accept that God is the boss, these are things atheists cannot stand thinking about doing. That's really what atheists are in a sense, people ho refuse to give up the will to God. I know that's going to upset a lot of atheist readers, if its not true why can't they accept the parameters of the search in the heart?
Every time an atheist tells me "I tried searching in my heart and God never never never answered" when I push I find that what he really means is "I tried real hard to do it the way some human being told me I had to." What I have never seen them actually mean is "I really gave up my will." All the people I know who are deeply spiritual and have true and meaningful relationships with God tell me they have given up their wills to God. I think it's an insight of the noetic quality of spiritual experience that we understand intuitively to seek God in the heart means to give up the will to God, giving up our desires, giving up our insistence that God come to us and present himself on our terms. That's what atheists are really saying they want God to do when they demand total absolute scientific evidence that so so strong they can't argue with it.
They keep trading on this conundrum. They keep saying "there's no proof, there's no scientific poof." What they mean is "there's proof that fits my parameters that I control he data and set up the understanding of the God phenomena my way so I will still be in charge." You can see this clearly in the actual insistence for scientific data. It is not unreasonable to demand scientific proof of a scientific hypothesis or of an assertion that the world works in such and such a say, but is unreasonable to except scientific proof of metaphysical and ontological assumptions and then reject metaphorical and ontological proofs on the grounds that they are not scientific. God is beyond our understanding. That means there is scientific proof because God is not a scientific question because God is not given in sense data. The atheist at this point dismisses the whole question as "made up," "imaginary" as though the only two choices in life are either imaginary or total absolute scientific proof. When you tell them there are other kinds of proof they laugh and mock and say "scientific is the only reliable way to know what's real." Not for areas that are not given in sense data. Science can only work in realms of empirical observation. Things that are beyond our empirical observation are not scientific questioned.
There are many such areas that science accepts as "scientific" and true (even though thy may have their detractors) even without scientific proof:
(1) Smoking was deemed harmful decades before a mechanism was discovered through which smoking causes cancer. Smoking was deemed a cause of cancer decades before there was any direct evidence based only on the tight correlation, which any atheist will point out in connection with a God argument is foolish and marks Christians as idiots for believing it.
(2) String theory is the hottest theory going no data. No objective empirical observations to back up string theory, tons of atheists are willing to talk about it as though ti's a proved fact.
(3) consciousness is also in the same ball park.
The list would be huge, inflationary theory, a-causal principle in Quantum theory (there's data to back it but there are schools that interpret the data differently) Oscillating universe, Quantum tunneling, there's a huge list. Science doesn't take the lack of hard evidence as seriously as atheists do when it comes to God arguments. In fact atheists are down right anti-scientific when it comes to scientific data that supports a God hypothesis. Look at the way they mock and ridicule the hundreds of studies I talk about that show that religious experience is real, good for you and not related to mental illness. These studies are all from peer reviewed journals, some are from major figures in social science such as Abraham Maslow, and Hood data on the M scale (the basic lynch pin of the whole field of research) is one of the most strongly verified prices of social science research. Atheists are constrained dismissing that stuff like it's just garbage. They call it 'pseudo science" and they find the most trivial reasons to argue against it. The Atheists on CARM even made the argument that these studies must be bad because one researcher included some of them on a bibliography with a source by Depok Chopra. They didn't even to look at why she quoted Chopra. She could have said he's a fool and quoted him to show that he is, for all they knew. Of course being on a bib with that source has nothing to do with the way the studies are done, but these atheists were dancing around going "we disproved them we beat Metacrock, his studies are crap!" Because they share space on a bib with a source they don't like! O yea they are an excellent example of scientific integrity. It becomes obvious that the demand scientific proof is just an ideolgoical ploy. Look at the way atheists refuse to accept that they part of a movement. There are a dozen national organizations that bring law suits on behalf of atheism they all say the same things, but they still try to argue that it's not a movement and it's not organized.
I refer to "opinion leaders" and to an organized movement that doesn't make it a conspiracy. There's nothing wrong with being in a movement. Feminism is a movement, and liberalism is a movement. I am part of both movement to some extent, and I don't seem them as conspiracies. There's nothing with being part of a movement, but atheists are loath to admit they are part of movement, they are scared to death to even admit a moment exists.This is becasue they have been taught an ideolgoical strategy that says "we don't have a movement." Just as it's obvious they do have one it's equally obvious that their insistence upon scientific proof is an ideological strategy. That move is not logical. It's only true function is propaganda. It's very off putting to a theist to be constantly bombarded by this demand and with the mystique of science in first world it becomes almost a shameful thing for a lot of people to even admit "God is not a scientific question." To a lot of people that's almost like admitting there can't be a God. That's because those people are in awe of the cultural capital science in a culture that isn't taught science very well. Those of us who study history and philosophy of science know better than to be intimidated by such a mindless ploy. Science is not the only form of knowledge, it is not the only way to know reality. God is not just another fact in the universe.
The scientific way of thinking objectifies reality. It reduces the real to a set of data and allows true aspect of the real to be lost between the cracks of empirical observation and reductionist loss of phenomena. Belief in God is not just adding a fact to the universe, it is a realization about the nature of one's place in being. God is the ground of being, not a big man in the sky, God is at the foundation of being, too basic to be part of scientific data, too transcendent to be reduced without losing phenomena. The ground for the search was never meant to be microscopes and telescopes, but the human the heart. It's a test of the wills one must give up the will to find God.
The smoking analogy is not satisfying to me but I can see how it is apt in many ways. The addiction aspect doesn't quite fit because some smokers want to quite and just can't. But atheists are socialized into a cultural construct through which they are, for want of a better term, "brain washed (socialized) by an ideology. The problem it's not analogous to addiction because they don't want to quite. It is analogs to smokers who don't want to quite. Atheists don't' want to believe. Some struggle with belief and maybe they do half want to believe, but their would be belief is conditional upon finding the truth but only if they get it their way meaning, so totally proved they can't argue with it. That is a trick of sin nature because it's an excuse not to view the good evidence (of which there is a ton) in a positive light. That is the glass half empty syndrome.
God is obvious to anyone who is willing to accept the search and truly diligently searches. Because belief in God is actually a realization about one's own relationship to being.
37 comments:
"atheists are loath to admit they are part of movement,"
Only when you insist on comparing that movement to Nazism, or accuse us of being "brainwashed"
"Every time an atheist tells me "I tried searching in my heart and God never never never answered" when I push I find that what he really means is "I tried real hard to do it the way some human being told me I had to." What I have never seen them actually mean is "I really gave up my will."
I guess you really haven't paid attention to a thing I've said, have you?
there is no such thing as disproving God or experiencing the lack of God.
I don't believe you have had the experience I have had. If you had you would know there would be no doubt and o reason to reject.
I don't doubt that you have had some kind fo experience but that doesn't prove it's mine.
From what I remember of your story there's reason to believe that you weren't experiencing God. It think might prove what i said better than I myself could.
I don't know. I didn't have your experience. I know that. I'm not trying to tell you what you felt. Based upon the impressions (all I remember is the impression I had not the specifics)I recall thinking to myself "that could very well be God and it seems like it's the need to draw the circle bigger phenomenon."
What I mean by that is what I experienced when I became an atheist. I disproved the chruch of Christ then I assumed if the C of C is wrong then all Christianity is wrong. But in reality what I needed to do was draw the circle bigger. Christianity is more than the Church of Christ.
I think that's what you experienced. You need to draw the circle bigger. God is more than Christianity.
//God is obvious to anyone who is willing to accept the search and truly diligently searches. Because belief in God is actually a realization about one's own relationship to being. //
Funny, literally EVERY religion makes the same assertions regarding their conflicting truth claims. You hear the same refrain from folks who believe in psi-powers,etc as well.
Interestingly one doesn't have to make the same claim regarding say gravity. I don't have complain that you're not searching 'hard enough' or something. I can simply show you with three dense balls, a stick, and some string.
//there is no such thing as disproving God or experiencing the lack of God.//
There's no such thing as disproving anything, that's a basic logical fallacy. However, one can certainly argue that the blatant lack of objectively verifiable evidence for X, pushes the probability of X asymptotically to 0.
//I don't believe you have had the experience I have had. If you had you would know there would be no doubt and o reason to reject.//
Personal experience, while precious and wonderful, is a demonstrably poor standard of proof. Again, people have 'experiences' with aliens, alternative medicine, and religions that don't involve Jesus as well.
You're missing the point (as usual...)
You say you have never seen an atheist who gave up their will. But I gave up everything. I gave up my self.
You don't know a goddamn thing about.
You say you have never seen an atheist who gave up their will. But I gave up everything. I gave up my self.
You don't know a goddamn thing about.
so did I. I know something about it. I know God is real and I know event though it might seem at times that he's not there, he is.
Blogger Erich Oliphant said...
//God is obvious to anyone who is willing to accept the search and truly diligently searches. Because belief in God is actually a realization about one's own relationship to being. //
Funny, literally EVERY religion makes the same assertions regarding their conflicting truth claims. You hear the same refrain from folks who believe in psi-powers,etc as well.
That is neither a disproof nor a coincidence. the reason all religious traditions think they have the truth is because they do. Religious tradition is like race; there's only one. It just has many appearances.
Interestingly one doesn't have to make the same claim regarding say gravity. I don't have complain that you're not searching 'hard enough' or something. I can simply show you with three dense balls, a stick, and some string.
actually you do. If you knew what Newton really said about gravity you would see that's wrong.
(1) we still don't know gravity is actually.
(2) I have arued scinece guys who cotend there's no such thing.
(3) Newton's public answer was that gravity is a occult force.
(4) Newton's private opinion was that gravity is the mind of God.
//there is no such thing as disproving God or experiencing the lack of God.//
There's no such thing as disproving anything, that's a basic logical fallacy.
Wrong! Hypotheses can be negated. Read Popper.
However, one can certainly argue that the blatant lack of objectively verifiable evidence for X, pushes the probability of X asymptotically to 0.
Nope! you don't understand probability and you don't understand the pretense you call "objectivity." Think I'll do a post on that today so watch for it.
There is no objectivity. Humans are only subjective. Subjectivity is a valid form of experience because it's all we have.
what you say here is not an answer to the point I made.
//I don't believe you have had the experience I have had. If you had you would know there would be no doubt and o reason to reject.//
Personal experience, while precious and wonderful, is a demonstrably poor standard of proof.
that's a lie that the against ideology tells you to brain wash you into not finding God! They are keeping from finding God by convening to you think you can only be content with absolute proof. There is no absolute proof for anything. They got you to nothing can be disproved you got it backwards. Things can be disproved, it's very rare that anything is really proved and all things can be doubted.
Again, people have 'experiences' with aliens, alternative medicine, and religions that don't involve Jesus as well.
That's fallaicious. Here's your logic:
X is an experince
P is a doubtful experience
therefore, because P is doubtful and it is an experience, X must be doubtful too.
Let's see how that works in a controlled setting where we have something we know.
Science is taught in universites.
folklore is taught in universeites.
Because folklore is untrue and it's taught in universities, therefore, scinece must be un true because it is taught in universities.
//That is neither a disproof nor a coincidence. the reason all religious traditions think they have the truth is because they do. Religious tradition is like race; there's only one. It just has many appearances.//
That's the common refrain of the liberal religious but is instantly problematic. It's not 'many appearances' but rather in many cases diametrically opposed truth claims. For instance, Jesus was either the Christ or 'only' a prophet who was a little self-deluded (or neither lol) On that point, Christians are right or the Jews are and the very basis of Christianity (aside from say Christian Deism) is false.
//(1) we still don't know gravity is actually.
(2) I have arued scinece guys who cotend there's no such thing.
(3) Newton's public answer was that gravity is a occult force.
(4) Newton's private opinion was that gravity is the mind of God.//
We know that gravity measurably and demonstrably exists, we are still looking for it's underlying cause (gravity waves,etc). Newton is famous because of his contributions to science (demonstrably verifiable, etc) not his religious fantasizing.
//Wrong! Hypotheses can be negated. Read Popper.//
True, Sorry allow me to restate, the lack of a negation is still not positive evidence. More importantly, you said that there's no such thing as 'disproving God'. Why? God's certainly a hypothesis.
//Nope! you don't understand probability and you don't understand the pretense you call "objectivity." Think I'll do a post on that today so watch for it.
There is no objectivity. Humans are only subjective. Subjectivity is a valid form of experience because it's all we have.//
That's not true, you can show that propositions are independent of a given observer, there's the more formal 'frame invariance', in science, etc.
cont..
//that's a lie that the against ideology tells you to brain wash you into not finding God! They are keeping from finding God by convening to you think you can only be content with absolute proof. There is no absolute proof for anything. They got you to nothing can be disproved you got it backwards. Things can be disproved, it's very rare that anything is really proved and all things can be doubted.//
I think you've gone off the rails here ;) First, my comment about the weaknesses of personal experience is a general one. Alternative medicine, psi 'believers', alien abductees, etc as well as the religious make semantically similar arguments. And the same complaints (you just need to "open your eyes" etc).
BTW, who exactly is 'they' ? 'They' seem to be up to a lot of stuff
//That's fallaicious. Here's your logic:
X is an experince
P is a doubtful experience
therefore, because P is doubtful and it is an experience, X must be doubtful too.
//
That's not what I said. What I said was a challenge to you to make a distinction. I didn't say it must be, but to me appears the same (evidenceless, highly dependent on personal testimony,etc)
//
Science is taught in universites.
folklore is taught in universeites.
Because folklore is untrue and it's taught in universities, therefore, scinece must be un true because it is taught in universities.//
This doesn't make any sense. Both are academic subjects, folklore as it's taught academically is 'truthful' as the subject understood to be untrue. Like a class on contemporary fiction.
The apropos analogy would be talking a folkloric assertion "Grendel's mom was a dragon" which we know to be untrue (unless as you said all religons are true lol) and saying that a scientifically validated assertion "time slows down as velocity increases" is therefore untrue as well.
But again, the analogy doesn't hold was no one is making truth claims regarding folklore.
Erich Oliphant said...
//That is neither a disproof nor a coincidence. the reason all religious traditions think they have the truth is because they do. Religious tradition is like race; there's only one. It just has many appearances.//
That's the common refrain of the liberal religious but is instantly problematic. It's not 'many appearances' but rather in many cases diametrically opposed truth claims. For instance, Jesus was either the Christ or 'only' a prophet who was a little self-deluded (or neither lol) On that point, Christians are right or the Jews are and the very basis of Christianity (aside from say Christian Deism) is false.
Obviouly there are aspects of rleigous traditons that are oppossed you have to ask are those the essence of the tradition or just "fiddely bits."
what the Jews think of Jesus is not the essence of either Judaism or Christianity. That's not a fair way to compare traditions.
//(1) we still don't know gravity is actually.
(2) I have arued scinece guys who cotend there's no such thing.
(3) Newton's public answer was that gravity is a occult force.
(4) Newton's private opinion was that gravity is the mind of God.//
We know that gravity measurably and demonstrably exists, we are still looking for it's underlying cause (gravity waves,etc). Newton is famous because of his contributions to science (demonstrably verifiable, etc) not his religious fantasizing.
You miss the point completely. What Newton thought about Gravity totally disproves the argument you made. It's not a matter of assuming his religious views are right because he was a top scientist in his day it's a matter of contradiction to your argument.
You said gravity is a fact we don't have to interpret it. then you contradict that yourself by admitting we don't know the cause which means we do have to argue. I also quoted the guy who discovered it and shows what he thought he discovered totally contradicts what you think he discovered. This disproves your idea that we don't have to argue about gravity, we are just now arguing about it.
//Wrong! Hypotheses can be negated. Read Popper.//
True, Sorry allow me to restate, the lack of a negation is still not positive evidence.
that beats your point not mine.
More importantly, you said that there's no such thing as 'disproving God'. Why? God's certainly a hypothesis.
that some hypotheses can be disproved doesn't mean all of them can.
//Nope! you don't understand probability and you don't understand the pretense you call "objectivity." Think I'll do a post on that today so watch for it.
There is no objectivity. Humans are only subjective. Subjectivity is a valid form of experience because it's all we have.//
That's not true, you can show that propositions are independent of a given observer, there's the more formal 'frame invariance', in science, etc.
Propositions are not sentient so they are not subjective. subjects are subjective. We are the subjects we do the perceiving. inanimate things are objects because we perceive them and they do not perceive us. A propostion is not subjective because it doesnt' percieve. our Knowledge is perceptive.
All propositions are made by humans.
All human persecitve is ubjective
therefore, all knowledge derived pertaining to propitiation is subjective in our view point.
Point out all day this or that is "objective" knowledge we don't hold it objectively becuase we can't be objective.
That is atheist ideology.
8:31 AM
Erich Oliphant said...
cont..
//that's a lie that the against ideology tells you to brain wash you into not finding God! They are keeping from finding God by convening to you think you can only be content with absolute proof. There is no absolute proof for anything. They got you to nothing can be disproved you got it backwards. Things can be disproved, it's very rare that anything is really proved and all things can be doubted.//
I think you've gone off the rails here ;) First, my comment about the weaknesses of personal experience is a general one. Alternative medicine, psi 'believers', alien abductees, etc as well as the religious make semantically similar arguments. And the same complaints (you just need to "open your eyes" etc).
Your reasoning is fallacious. The fallacy you are committing si guilt by association. Here's how it goes:
Premise: psi and other such "new age" pehoemna are experential in nature.
inference: therefore, all things that are experiential in nature are bad, wrong, untrustworthy.
second premise, religious princely is experiential in nature.
Conclusion: therefore, religious experience must also be bad, wrong, untrustworthy because it's experiential in nature.
you are assuming the form of experience is this new age stuff. In reality all our concepts about reality come form experience. All the basic stuff we take for granted is based upon experiential knowledge.
I exist
Other minds exist outside my own
the past is like the future
the sun will rise tomarrow.
all of that is based upon experience.
BTW, who exactly is 'they' ? 'They' seem to be up to a lot of stuff
your atheist handelers
//That's fallaicious. Here's your logic:
X is an experince
P is a doubtful experience
therefore, because P is doubtful and it is an experience, X must be doubtful too.
//
That's not what I said. What I said was a challenge to you to make a distinction. I didn't say it must be, but to me appears the same (evidenceless, highly dependent on personal testimony,etc)
NO you did not. you said exactly what I said. you made no distinction. you didn't say you were making a distinction.
I have no basis for concluding that I don't make a distinction.
//
Science is taught in universites.
folklore is taught in universeites.
Because folklore is untrue and it's taught in universities, therefore, scinece must be un true because it is taught in universities.//
This doesn't make any sense. Both are academic subjects, folklore as it's taught academically is 'truthful' as the subject understood to be untrue. Like a class on contemporary fiction.
That's the logical way but your way is to assume if one thing is wrong and you can compare something to it the thing you compare is wrong too. That's a fallacy and it's the basic way your atheist handlers brain wash you to ignore personal expedience. That the only way to find God. you can't find god without that so of cousre they have to shut it down.
The apropos analogy would be talking a folkloric assertion "Grendel's mom was a dragon" which we know to be untrue (unless as you said all religons are true lol) and saying that a scientifically validated assertion "time slows down as velocity increases" is therefore untrue as well.
my version is a perfect representation of your logic. You see that it's wrong in the example e but you can't connect it to the way you think about religious experience.
But again, the analogy doesn't hold was no one is making truth claims regarding folklore.
you were. you are backpedaling. there would be no point in your having said it if it wasn't' an argument.
//Obviouly there are aspects of rleigous traditons that are oppossed you have to ask are those the essence of the tradition or just "fiddely bits."
what the Jews think of Jesus is not the essence of either Judaism or Christianity. That's not a fair way to compare traditions.//
I'm sorry but that's a cop-out. The divinity of Jesus as it relates to Christianity is not exactly a 'fiddly bit'. If it's 'wrong' Christianity is 'wrong'. Yes, Jews don't preoccupy themselves with Jesus as they wrote him off 2 millenia ago, not quite the same for Christians (who by the way have preoccupied themselves (sometimes violently) with the 'write-off')
If we're discussing the general nature of religion across cultures, etc. sure we can talk about 'essences' all day. However, religions also make truth claims, some of which contradict each other, some of which contradict what we now know about the world, universe, etc around us.
//You miss the point completely. What Newton thought about Gravity totally disproves the argument you made. .....
... This disproves your idea that we don't have to argue about gravity, we are just now arguing about it.//
How does what you said about Newton contradict my point? My point was that gravity is objectively verifiable. The fact that we don't understand it's underlying causes (the same place we were with say electromagnetism not that long ago) does not change the fact that gravity exists and has certain characteristics. If you have some "God effects" that we can objectively measure but don't quite understand, by all means I'd love to hear about them.
//that beats your point not mine.//
You're claiming that god exists no?
//that some hypotheses can be disproved doesn't mean all of them can.//
And your explanation of why the god hypothesis is one of those is forthcoming ? :)
//Propositions are not sentient so they are not subjective. subjects are subjective. We are the subjects we do the perceiving. inanimate things are objects because we perceive them and they do not perceive us. A propostion is not subjective because it doesnt' percieve. our Knowledge is perceptive.//
You are now just making things up ;) subjective, objective, etc are used as modifiers describing a proposition. "It's warm in here" can be tagged as subjective as warm is ill defined,etc. It's 33C in here is an objectively verifiable proposition.
//All propositions are made by humans.
All human persecitve is ubjective//
One more time, slowly... Yet propositions, phenomena, etc can be shown to be "observer independent"
//Point out all day this or that is "objective" knowledge we don't hold it objectively becuase we can't be objective.
That is atheist ideology.//
Umm no actually it's the philosophy of science, etc and has nothing whatsoever to do with atheism.
//Obviouly there are aspects of rleigous traditons that are oppossed you have to ask are those the essence of the tradition or just "fiddely bits."
what the Jews think of Jesus is not the essence of either Judaism or Christianity. That's not a fair way to compare traditions.//
I'm sorry but that's a cop-out. The divinity of Jesus as it relates to Christianity is not exactly a 'fiddly bit'. If it's 'wrong' Christianity is 'wrong'. Yes, Jews don't preoccupy themselves with Jesus as they wrote him off 2 millenia ago, not quite the same for Christians (who by the way have preoccupied themselves (sometimes violently) with the 'write-off')
If we're discussing the general nature of religion across cultures, etc. sure we can talk about 'essences' all day. However, religions also make truth claims, some of which contradict each other, some of which contradict what we now know about the world, universe, etc around us.
//You miss the point completely. What Newton thought about Gravity totally disproves the argument you made. .....
... This disproves your idea that we don't have to argue about gravity, we are just now arguing about it.//
How does what you said about Newton contradict my point? My point was that gravity is objectively verifiable. The fact that we don't understand it's underlying causes (the same place we were with say electromagnetism not that long ago) does not change the fact that gravity exists and has certain characteristics. If you have some "God effects" that we can objectively measure but don't quite understand, by all means I'd love to hear about them.
//that beats your point not mine.//
You're claiming that god exists no?
//that some hypotheses can be disproved doesn't mean all of them can.//
And your explanation of why the god hypothesis is one of those is forthcoming ? :)
Cont...
//Propositions are not sentient so they are not subjective. subjects are subjective. We are the subjects we do the perceiving. inanimate things are objects because we perceive them and they do not perceive us. A propostion is not subjective because it doesnt' percieve. our Knowledge is perceptive.//
You are now just making things up ;) subjective, objective, etc are used as modifiers describing a proposition. "It's warm in here" can be tagged as subjective as warm is ill defined,etc. It's 33C in here is an objectively verifiable proposition.
//All propositions are made by humans.
All human persecitve is ubjective//
One more time, slowly... Yet propositions, phenomena, etc can be shown to be "observer independent"
//Point out all day this or that is "objective" knowledge we don't hold it objectively becuase we can't be objective.
That is atheist ideology.//
Umm no actually it's the philosophy of science, etc and has nothing whatsoever to do with atheism.
//Your reasoning is fallacious. The fallacy you are committing si guilt by association. Here's how it goes:
Premise: psi and other such "new age" pehoemna are experential in nature.
inference: therefore, all things that are experiential in nature are bad, wrong, untrustworthy.//
That's fine are you agreeing then that new age phenomena, etc are in the same 'class' as it were as religion ? Also, I levied no 'guilt' per se. I simply pointed out that the claims in these other areas appear to be similar. Again, are they, or not?
Also, you've provided your own inference, not mine. My would be that such things for whice one can only provide subjective, 'experential' evidence might be true, but cannot be distinguished from imagination, self delusion, intentional deception, etc.
//you are assuming the form of experience is this new age stuff. In reality all our concepts about reality come form experience. All the basic stuff we take for granted is based upon experiential knowledge.//
I didn't assume that, agian, i pointed out that they appear to be the same. If you are claiming that they aren't by all means, hold forth.
In reality our experience is also demonstrably unreliable,subject to confirmation/selection biases, perceptual faults, the limitaitions of memory, etc. which is why perhaps the greatest value of 'objectivity' is when we are trying to assess truth claims.
//I exist
Other minds exist outside my own
the past is like the future
the sun will rise tomarrow.
all of that is based upon experience.//
there's a god, water boils at 100C, jesus is gods son (sort of), the sun doesn't actually 'rise' but the fact that it appears to do so is due to the earth's rotation, allah was his last messenger
Those are all based on experience. However some of those claims are objectively verifiable, others are not.
//NO you did not. you said exactly what I said. you made no distinction. you didn't say you were making a distinction.
I have no basis for concluding that I don't make a distinction.//
Fine ;) To be clear, I am asking you to make the distinction
/That's the logical way but your way is to assume if one thing is wrong and you can compare something to it the thing you compare is wrong too. That's a fallacy and it's the basic way your atheist handlers brain wash you to ignore personal expedience. That the only way to find God. you can't find god without that so of cousre they have to shut it down.
//
Oh my, the atheist handler's ? Do they have uniforms ?:) Richard Dawkins masks ? :) I assume you've 'experienced' them as well ? :)
That's a bit hyperbolic no one says ignore personal experience, but simply recognize it's limitations. Having empirical experience about X helps. And while we've digressed some, let's not forget a salient point. If god is the alleged alpha and omega, not a fact in the universe but perhaps the fact of the universe. it's curious that objective evidence for it seems to be so hard to come by.
//my version is a perfect representation of your logic. You see that it's wrong in the example e but you can't connect it to the way you think about religious experience.
//
Umm no but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, lol. Again, folklore, fiction, etc are taught as truth so your version is a bit of a stretch.
Also, you threw some MUST's in there that I did not. Again, if I wasn't clear, I am simply asking you why religion, god, etc are distinct (if in fact they are to you) from psi, etc.
//you were. you are backpedaling. there would be no point in your having said it if it wasn't' an argument.//
Umm no, well let's be clear folklore was your example, not mine. Psi claims, like religious ones despite making what would seem to be testable assertions (some guy with a couple of sticks can find water at rate better than chance, or intercessory prayer 'works', etc). Yet the respective claimants then resort to special pleading when their assertions cannot be verified.
With regards to psi experiences, alien abductions, and so on:
As a theist I can examine each of these claims on its own merits. I am not required to believe all of them just because I have become convinced of the existence of God. Being a theist doesn't mean I am required to be gullible. Things like aliens are presumed to be physical beings; therefore, if they are interacting with people on earth, there ought to be some physical evidence, some traces, here on earth. I am free to weigh this evidence on its own merits.
Things like psi experiences or ghosts may or may not have physical evidence. Since I don't hold to scientific-evidence-only as a paradigm, I'm free to examine these things and accept or reject them based on all different kinds of evidence (including legal evidence such as the believability of a witness' testimony, corroborating testimony, circumstancial evidence, etc.), or neither accept nor reject, but keep an open mind. I need not dogmatically decide that they cannot be true or that they must be true.
On the other hand, even if any of these non-physical phenomena could be real, it seems to me that a science-only atheist is dogmatically required to reject them. This seems to me to be cutting short the very spirit of inquiry which is supposed to be the basis of scientific thought. There may be more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are conceived of in your philosophy. But what if scientism keeps you from looking into the question with anything like an open mind?
/Obviouly there are aspects of rleigous traditons that are oppossed you have to ask are those the essence of the tradition or just "fiddely bits."
what the Jews think of Jesus is not the essence of either Judaism or Christianity. That's not a fair way to compare traditions.//
I'm sorry but that's a cop-out. The divinity of Jesus as it relates to Christianity is not exactly a 'fiddly bit'. If it's 'wrong' Christianity is 'wrong'.
Not a cop out, you don't understand the issue. The issue is that the basic substance of all belie fin God embraces the same reality. That you find theological difference is the result of cultural constructs.
What Jews think of Jesus is not the basis of Judaism. If you ask someone "what must I do to be a good Jew" they would not say "hate Jesus." If you ask a Christian "what do I do to be saved" they would not say "refuse to believe the Jews."
The essence of Christianity stands independent of what Jews think. Vice verse. yes there are theological differences, those are not the essence of the belief.
Yes, Jews don't preoccupy themselves with Jesus as they wrote him off 2 millenia ago, not quite the same for Christians (who by the way have preoccupied themselves (sometimes violently) with the 'write-off')
That's not important. That's got nothing to do with the issue of the reality behind the traditions.
If we're discussing the general nature of religion across cultures, etc. sure we can talk about 'essences' all day. However, religions also make truth claims, some of which contradict each other, some of which contradict what we now know about the world, universe, etc around us.
that's a cop out. Because you trying to say that your ability to disprove truth claims is what religion is all about and seeking God is just a side bar.
//You miss the point completely. What Newton thought about Gravity totally disproves the argument you made. .....
... This disproves your idea that we don't have to argue about gravity, we are just now arguing about it.//
How does what you said about Newton contradict my point? My point was that gravity is objectively verifiable.
Obviously not you don't know what it is. The guy who discovered it had a privet idea for what it is and it contradicts your wolf view (he said it was the mind of God). How could it be objective and verifiable if you don't know what it is and the discoverer had a secret idea of it?
The only thing that is objective and verifiable is that that things fall to the center of mass. But is not gravity. it may be the result of gravity but we can't just look at thins falling and go "O I see gravity there." what gravity is and what it does are two different things.
The fact that we don't understand it's underlying causes (the same place we were with say electromagnetism not that long ago) does not change the fact that gravity exists and has certain characteristics.
sure as hell does. How do you know Gravity exits? If you don't know what it is hoe do you it exits? what about those physicists who argued that it doesn't exist?
If you have some "God effects" that we can objectively measure but don't quite understand, by all means I'd love to hear about them.
yes I do. things seem to be attracted to the center of mass.
//that beats your point not mine.//
You're claiming that god exists no?
what you said is not disproof of God's existence. Your arguments are self defeating you use the pretend of objectivity to justify your subjective world view.
//that some hypotheses can be disproved doesn't mean all of them can.//
And your explanation of why the god hypothesis is one of those is forthcoming ? :)
why?
//Propositions are not sentient so they are not subjective. subjects are subjective. We are the subjects we do the perceiving. inanimate things are objects because we perceive them and they do not perceive us. A propostion is not subjective because it doesnt' percieve. our Knowledge is perceptive.//
You are now just making things up ;) subjective, objective, etc are used as modifiers describing a proposition. "It's warm in here" can be tagged as subjective as warm is ill defined,etc. It's 33C in here is an objectively verifiable proposition.
That's wrong, it' snot grammatical. It's not true either. There is no such thing has human objectivity. You can't get outside of your perceptions to check them. It doesn't matter if you have so called' "objective data" you can evaluate it objectively.
you can force the conclusion on trivial matters such as mathematical questions but you can't be objective when you evalute the big picture.
Your so called "science" is nothing more than selective propaganda.
read my current post.
//All propositions are made by humans.
All human persecitve is ubjective//
One more time, slowly... Yet propositions, phenomena, etc can be shown to be "observer independent"
on more time. no they can't be. Because all observers are biased. There is no objective view. So it doesn't' matter if the data is objective you are are not. you can't read it and be objective about it.
the facts don't' care if you win or lose they are not helping you.
//Point out all day this or that is "objective" knowledge we don't hold it objectively becuase we can't be objective.
That is atheist ideology.//
Umm no actually it's the philosophy of science, etc and has nothing whatsoever to do with atheism.
O right like every single philosopher of scinece says "you can be objective." I don't' thin they do. ever read Kuhn. No they dot' say that.
//Your reasoning is fallacious. The fallacy you are committing si guilt by association. Here's how it goes:
Premise: psi and other such "new age" pehoemna are experential in nature.
inference: therefore, all things that are experiential in nature are bad, wrong, untrustworthy.//
That's fine are you agreeing then that new age phenomena, etc are in the same 'class' as it were as religion ? Also, I levied no 'guilt' per se. I simply pointed out that the claims in these other areas appear to be similar. Again, are they, or not?
you are saying that because you think I must like those areas if I believe in spirituality right? That's your bias. I bet you have pseudo science in your view that you disguise as real scinece such as evolutionary psychology.
Also, you've provided your own inference, not mine. My would be that such things for whice one can only provide subjective, 'experential' evidence might be true, but cannot be distinguished from imagination, self delusion, intentional deception, etc.
that's just utter bull shit. read my new post for the blog. I show that that's a pile a crap. it certainly can be. As with the M scale.
Oh my, the atheist handler's ? Do they have uniforms ?:) Richard Dawkins masks ? :) I assume you've 'experienced' them as well ? :)
ahahahahahah lOL that's a good answer.
that's just my little way of getting under your skin. ;-)
@Kristen
//As a theist I can examine each of these claims on its own merits. I am not required to believe all of them just because I have become convinced of the existence of God. ..//
I wasn't claiming that you, for instance, were required to believe these other things. But rather that the proponents of these 'other things' make similar claims. The question is, are religious claims in fact different, if so how?
Let's be clear, the 'paradigm' is simply objectively verifiable evidence, evidence that can't easily be confused with someones imagination, self-delusions, perceptual faults,etc.
Your witness testimony point is a great one as 1) legal standards of 'proof' are acknowledged to be less rigorus that that of science 2) The kinds of evidence that you listed are the weakest. testimony is nice, but a DNA sample is much nicer.
You seem to have made a few leaps that I havent actually :) I for instance, haven't "dogmatically" decided that religious claims can't be true, but like other claims that have no evidence, they are highly improbable. I will always have an 'open mind' for new information, evidence,etc as it's presented, but I've yet to see an argument for lowering my standard of evidence.
//On the other hand, even if any of these non-physical phenomena could be real, it seems to me that a science-only atheist is dogmatically required to reject them.//
Again, you're making a bit of a leap there. The question is, again, how do you propose that we evaluate evidence for such phenomena? Again, in such a way that can't be confused with one's imagination, etc? Again, I'm quite open minded and all ears :)
@Metacrock
//Not a cop out, you don't understand the issue. The issue is that the basic substance of all belie fin God embraces the same reality. That you find theological difference is the result of cultural constructs.//
Ok so a Deist god who, basically kickstarted existence and has been playing golf for the last 15 billion years, is the 'same reality' as a god who listens to and arbitrarily answers the prayers of some relatively advanced primates on a run of the mill planet in one of billions of galaxies?
If this is what you're saying that's an pretty useless version of reality, if we are trying to figure out the world around us such that we can make better decisions,etc
The theological differences that make competing claims about reality cannot just be cast aside. Well you can, of course, it's just doesn't make the case for theology, which itself may very well be the study of nothing...
/That's not important. That's got nothing to do with the issue of the reality behind the traditions.//
I think we're saying the same thing lol. Was Jesus the Christ. That's the christian reality. You can dance around it all day. But both groups cannot be right about this question.
//that's a cop out. Because you trying to say that your ability to disprove truth claims is what religion is all about and seeking God is just a side bar.//
I made no claims about my ability disprove anything . However, religions do make claims about the nature of reality. If Jesus is gods son then, Jews, Muslims etc mignt not exactly be 'seeking' the same thing. You are now making an implict claim that there's a (single) god to seek. What about animists and polytheists? What about the possibility that seeking god is self-delusion and a waste of time ? It still boils down to the truth claims.
//bviously not you don't know what it is. The guy who discovered it had a privet idea for what it is and it contradicts your wolf view (he said it was the mind of God). How could it be objective and verifiable if you don't know what it is and the discoverer had a secret idea of it?//
And since he had no evidence for what he claimed it do be, he gets credit for the objectively verifiable phenomena, but not for his unsupported ruminations...
//The only thing that is objective and verifiable is that that things fall to the center of mass. But is not gravity. it may be the result of gravity but we can't just look at thins falling and go "O I see gravity there." what gravity is and what it does are two different things.
//
Umm, the fact that the force of gravity is proportional to both mass and distance. Pretty objectively verifiable. Go give it a shot, I'll wait :)
//sure as hell does. How do you know Gravity exits? If you don't know what it is hoe do you it exits? what about those physicists who argued that it doesn't exist?//
I'll redirect you to my previous point.
//yes I do. things seem to be attracted to the center of mass.//
If that's your proposition then we'd need to see some evidence first of a god then that it has something to do with gravity. See science has the intellectual honesty to say "I don't know" until evidence is available...
//And your explanation of why the god hypothesis is one of those is forthcoming ? :)
why?//
Are you claiming that God is not a disprovable hypothesis or not ?
@Metacrock
Ok so a Deist god who, basically kickstarted existence and has been playing golf for the last 15 billion years, is the 'same reality' as a god who listens to and arbitrarily answers the prayers of some relatively advanced primates on a run of the mill planet in one of billions of galaxies?
If this is what you're saying that's an pretty useless version of reality, if we are trying to figure out the world around us such that we can make better decisions,etc
The theological differences that make competing claims about reality cannot just be cast aside. Well you can, of course, it's just doesn't make the case for theology, which itself may very well be the study of nothing...
/That's not important. That's got nothing to do with the issue of the reality behind the traditions.//
I think we're saying the same thing lol. Was Jesus the Christ. That's the christian reality. You can dance around it all day. But both groups cannot be right about this question.
//that's a cop out. Because you trying to say that your ability to disprove truth claims is what religion is all about and seeking God is just a side bar.//
I made no claims about my ability disprove anything . However, religions do make claims about the nature of reality. If Jesus is gods son then, Jews, Muslims etc mignt not exactly be 'seeking' the same thing. You are now making an implict claim that there's a (single) god to seek. What about animists and polytheists? What about the possibility that seeking god is self-delusion and a waste of time ? It still boils down to the truth claims.
//bviously not you don't know what it is. The guy who discovered it had a privet idea for what it is and it contradicts your wolf view (he said it was the mind of God). How could it be objective and verifiable if you don't know what it is and the discoverer had a secret idea of it?//
And since he had no evidence for what he claimed it do be, he gets credit for the objectively verifiable phenomena, but not for his unsupported ruminations...
@Metacrock
//The only thing that is objective and verifiable is that that things fall to the center of mass. But is not gravity. it may be the result of gravity but we can't just look at thins falling and go "O I see gravity there." what gravity is and what it does are two different things.
//
Umm, the fact that the force of gravity is proportional to both mass and distance. Pretty objectively verifiable. Go give it a shot, I'll wait :)
//sure as hell does. How do you know Gravity exits? If you don't know what it is hoe do you it exits? what about those physicists who argued that it doesn't exist?//
I'll redirect you to my previous point.
//yes I do. things seem to be attracted to the center of mass.//
If that's your proposition then we'd need to see some evidence first of a god then that it has something to do with gravity. See science has the intellectual honesty to say "I don't know" until evidence is available...
//And your explanation of why the god hypothesis is one of those is forthcoming ? :)
why?//
Are you claiming that God is not a disprovable hypothesis or not ?
//That's wrong, it' snot grammatical. It's not true either. There is no such thing has human objectivity. You can't get outside of your perceptions to check them. It doesn't matter if you have so called' "objective data" you can evaluate it objectively.
//
It's not 'grammatical' ? OK lol
I think you're making my point. I can use independent verification, instruments, etc to collectively 'objectify' a proposition. Try that with the 'self-authenticating witness of Jesus Christ" or something :)
//you can force the conclusion on trivial matters such as mathematical questions but you can't be objective when you evalute the big picture.//
That was a pretty bold and unsupported statement ;)
//Your so called "science" is nothing more than selective propaganda.//
Yes I know, we should be using faith-engineered planes, medicines, etc :)
//on more time. no they can't be. Because all observers are biased. There is no objective view. So it doesn't' matter if the data is objective you are are not. you can't read it and be objective about it.//
Exactly, if biases vary across observers, but observations do not welcome to 'frame invariance'. Thank you for making my point. :)
@Metacrock
//you are saying that because you think I must like those areas if I believe in spirituality right? That's your bias. I bet you have pseudo science in your view that you disguise as real scinece such as evolutionary psychology.//
Umm is just making assumptions a religious thing ? :) I said nothing about what you must like. One more time, I pointed out that those areas make similar, claims, unsupported by verifiable evidence. I was actully thinking that you might not believe in some of the things I listed and was hoping that you'd clarify, if possible, why religious claims are different.
//that's just utter bull shit. read my new post for the blog. I show that that's a pile a crap. it certainly can be. As with the M scale.//
Lol that's articulate ;)
@Metacrock
//ahahahahahah lOL that's a good answer.
that's just my little way of getting under your skin. ;-)//
Didn't you know we're skinless as well as soulless lol :)
Umm is just making assumptions a religious thing ? :) I said nothing about what you must like. One more time, I pointed out that those areas make similar, claims, unsupported by verifiable evidence. I was actully thinking that you might not believe in some of the things I listed and was hoping that you'd clarify, if possible, why religious claims are different.
You think they are wrong because they are not naturalistic don't you? Your opposition to them is that they violate your ideology. My opposition to them is that they have been proved not to work. Why would they be similar to religion?
because you are doing guilt by association. Both things outside naturalistic ideology, therefore, both must be wrong.
I think you're making my point. I can use independent verification, instruments, etc to collectively 'objectify' a proposition. Try that with the 'self-authenticating witness of Jesus Christ" or something :)
"objectify" means lose the phenomena. you think you are saying something postiive but you are really just saying "I'm going to control." that means your subjective pretense of objectivity will lose the phenomena and reify the situation to support your world view, in a self serving way not a truth finding way.
//you can force the conclusion on trivial matters such as mathematical questions but you can't be objective when you evalute the big picture.//
That was a pretty bold and unsupported statement ;)
self evident is it's own support
//Your so called "science" is nothing more than selective propaganda.//
Yes I know, we should be using faith-engineered planes, medicines, etc :)
that's a fallacy and a bait and with. "we have the only alternative. if you are not signed on to our ideology they are just one of these age guys. That's intimidation, guilt by association and losing the phenomena.
//on more time. no they can't be. Because all observers are biased. There is no objective view. So it doesn't' matter if the data is objective you are are not. you can't read it and be objective about it.//
Exactly, if biases vary across observers, but observations do not welcome to 'frame invariance'. Thank you for making my point. :)
lol that was not your point. you doing the bait and switch again. You can't be objective it's a pretense. when you can't disprove that because it's true you switch to another position.your position was objective = truth. You can't be object you don't have truth.
@Metacrock
//The only thing that is objective and verifiable is that that things fall to the center of mass. But is not gravity. it may be the result of gravity but we can't just look at thins falling and go "O I see gravity there." what gravity is and what it does are two different things.
//
Umm, the fact that the force of gravity is proportional to both mass and distance. Pretty objectively verifiable. Go give it a shot, I'll wait :)
Your phrase 'the force of gravity' you have thought about that? that's the occult force Newton talked about. why are you willing to accept THAT occult force and not the one that created the universe? Newton thought they were the same?
you are still just talking effects. you don't know what gravity is. The inverse square law is about effects it does not tell us the nature of gravity.
//sure as hell does. How do you know Gravity exits? If you don't know what it is hoe do you it exits? what about those physicists who argued that it doesn't exist?//
I'll redirect you to my previous point.
I disproved your previous point. it was upon not knowing what gravity is.
//yes I do. things seem to be attracted to the center of mass.//
If that's your proposition then we'd need to see some evidence first of a god then that it has something to do with gravity. See science has the intellectual honesty to say "I don't know" until evidence is available...
what total absolute bull shit! You don't have science, you have an ideology that hitch hikes on scinece. Science is not atheism and its' not opposed to God it's not a means of regularity metaphysics.
Science does not tolerate "I don't know" and atheists don't either. They tolerate their own "I don't know" they do not tolerate mine.
//And your explanation of why the god hypothesis is one of those is forthcoming ? :)
self evident. 90% of all people now and in all of human history have believed in God. That in itself is reason enough to accept God Belief as properly basic.
It seems to be part of us, it's genetic heritate either direclty or indirectly, it's also the lion's share major thinkers have supported it. all of that is reason enough.
My own experience is reason enough.
@Metacrock
Ok so a Deist god who, basically kickstarted existence and has been playing golf for the last 15 billion years, is the 'same reality' as a god who listens to and arbitrarily answers the prayers of some relatively advanced primates on a run of the mill planet in one of billions of galaxies?
Yes. Jugements like the former are merely speculative. Our understanding of God is always goig to be inadequate. Here's your chance to accept "I dont' know." We don't know.
Anything that is necessary, eternal,Ground of being, first cause has to be God. That's becuase divine primary qualities can't be shared, there can only be one. All religions vest God with those qualities.
If this is what you're saying that's an pretty useless version of reality, if we are trying to figure out the world around us such that we can make better decisions,etc
Only because atheism has brain washed you to think that control is where it's at. Unless you are incontinent and you can dissect the truth and understand everything then it's all useless. That's garbage. God is always in control. It's not about control it's about experience.
Truth of God is not words on paper, you don't need to dissect God to experience God.
The theological differences that make competing claims about reality cannot just be cast aside. Well you can, of course, it's just doesn't make the case for theology, which itself may very well be the study of nothing...
Most of them can be harmonized, those that can't are usually either connected to ceremonial processes or deal with control. The things that can't be harmonized are usually about who is in charge of the tradition.
Mystical theology gives us a perfect example of what is shared by all traditions. All traditions have mystics and all mystical experiences have the same qualities.
/That's not important. That's got nothing to do with the issue of the reality behind the traditions.//
I think we're saying the same thing lol. Was Jesus the Christ. That's the christian reality. You can dance around it all day. But both groups cannot be right about this question.
Yes, that is true. Jesus is the one issue that differs. But Jesus was a real guy not a myth. So that has an empirical base. It's also the case that Paul tell us in Acts (through "Luke") and in Romans that one can know Christ without knowing he's Jesus. That doesn't' change the fact that he is Jesus, but it means salvation is possible without knowing the full identity.
see Romans 2:6-14 and Acts 17:21-29
@Metacrock
Ok so a Deist god who, basically kickstarted existence and has been playing golf for the last 15 billion years, is the 'same reality' as a god who listens to and arbitrarily answers the prayers of some relatively advanced primates on a run of the mill planet in one of billions of galaxies?
Yes. Jugements like the former are merely speculative. Our understanding of God is always goig to be inadequate. Here's your chance to accept "I dont' know." We don't know.
Anything that is necessary, eternal,Ground of being, first cause has to be God. That's becuase divine primary qualities can't be shared, there can only be one. All religions vest God with those qualities.
If this is what you're saying that's an pretty useless version of reality, if we are trying to figure out the world around us such that we can make better decisions,etc
Only because atheism has brain washed you to think that control is where it's at. Unless you are incontinent and you can dissect the truth and understand everything then it's all useless. That's garbage. God is always in control. It's not about control it's about experience.
Truth of God is not words on paper, you don't need to dissect God to experience God.
The theological differences that make competing claims about reality cannot just be cast aside. Well you can, of course, it's just doesn't make the case for theology, which itself may very well be the study of nothing...
Most of them can be harmonized, those that can't are usually either connected to ceremonial processes or deal with control. The things that can't be harmonized are usually about who is in charge of the tradition.
Mystical theology gives us a perfect example of what is shared by all traditions. All traditions have mystics and all mystical experiences have the same qualities.
/That's not important. That's got nothing to do with the issue of the reality behind the traditions.//
I think we're saying the same thing lol. Was Jesus the Christ. That's the christian reality. You can dance around it all day. But both groups cannot be right about this question.
Yes, that is true. Jesus is the one issue that differs. But Jesus was a real guy not a myth. So that has an empirical base. It's also the case that Paul tell us in Acts (through "Luke") and in Romans that one can know Christ without knowing he's Jesus. That doesn't' change the fact that he is Jesus, but it means salvation is possible without knowing the full identity.
see Romans 2:6-14 and Acts 17:21-29
//that's a cop out. Because you trying to say that your ability to disprove truth claims is what religion is all about and seeking God is just a side bar.//
I made no claims about my ability disprove anything . However, religions do make claims about the nature of reality.
when you look at the highest expression of those traditions, their mystics, they all have the same experience and say the same things.
If Jesus is gods son then, Jews, Muslims etc mignt not exactly be 'seeking' the same thing.
Read those passages above. "when gentile not born under the law do the things required in the law they become a law unto themselves...God put it on their hearts...their hearts may excuse them.(Romans)
"Men of Athens I see that you are most religious...he is not far from anyone of us...that which you already know I will proclaim to you... (Acts)
You are now making an implict claim that there's a (single) god to seek. What about animists and polytheists?
both usually have single force of deity behind the pantheon, usually a creator, who is the most important one and is in back of it all. For the animist its the force of nature itself.
What about the possibility that seeking god is self-delusion and a waste of time ?
If it was it wouldn't work for navigation it wouldn't be transformational. 200 studies show it is.
It still boils down to the truth claims.
so what? Experience of God is the experience of truth. Truth claims about God are derived form experience of the truth.
//bviously not you don't know what it is. The guy who discovered it had a privet idea for what it is and it contradicts your wolf view (he said it was the mind of God). How could it be objective and verifiable if you don't know what it is and the discoverer had a secret idea of it?//
And since he had no evidence for what he claimed it do be, he gets credit for the objectively verifiable phenomena, but not for his unsupported ruminations...
How does pointing that out help you? That only reinforces the fact that we don't know what gravity is. So all you are doing is pointing to obvious phenomena. now look how you have qualities your original argument?
That is far sort of objective and verifiable.
"the death of a fine brash hypothesis comes with a thousand qualifications" (Flew).
//that's a cop out. Because you trying to say that your ability to disprove truth claims is what religion is all about and seeking God is just a side bar.//
I made no claims about my ability disprove anything . However, religions do make claims about the nature of reality.
when you look at the highest expression of those traditions, their mystics, they all have the same experience and say the same things.
Erich said:
"I wasn't claiming that you, for instance, were required to believe these other things. But rather that the proponents of these 'other things' make similar claims. The question is, are religious claims in fact different, if so how?"
Because God is different from other kinds of claims. Belief in ghosts is a matter of whether or not a certain kind of thing exists. But God is not a thing. God is the foundation and source of things. No matter what a particular religion's tenets are, when they talk about "God" or "Atman" or "Allah," this is what they're talking about-- something ultimately beyond human comprehension.
"Let's be clear, the 'paradigm' is simply objectively verifiable evidence, evidence that can't easily be confused with someones imagination, self-delusions, perceptual faults,etc."
Precisely. And it's a self-limiting paradigm. Because "objectively verifiable evidence" is your arbiter of truth, you are unable to see anything that cannot be viewed through that lens. What if there really is a Foundation of being that cannot be objectively verified by this kind of evidence? Then you must remain forever blind to it, even if it's at your fingertips all along.
"Your witness testimony point is a great one as 1) legal standards of 'proof' are acknowledged to be less rigorus that that of science 2) The kinds of evidence that you listed are the weakest. testimony is nice, but a DNA sample is much nicer."
The reason legal standards of proof are different from those of science is that there are some things that cannot be proven through science. To insist that they are less "rigorous" because they are not science, is to deny the reality of what you're talking about. A DNA sample is scientific evidence. When a DNA sample is not available, the legal profession doesn't just throw up its hands and say, "Well, we have no scientific evidence, so therefore we have no evidence. Guess this case is unsolvable." But this is what atheists want to do with religion.
"You seem to have made a few leaps that I havent actually :) I for instance, haven't "dogmatically" decided that religious claims can't be true, but like other claims that have no evidence, they are highly improbable. I will always have an 'open mind' for new information, evidence,etc as it's presented, but I've yet to see an argument for lowering my standard of evidence."
No one's asking you to lower your standard of evidence-- they're asking you to open your eyes to another whole way of looking at things. You say you have an open mind, but your mind is only open to things within your narrow paradigm-- things that can be verified scientifically. But you actually rely on things all the time that can't be verified scientifically. You rely on the love of your loved ones, even though science can't prove they love you, or even that love is anything more than a flow of chemicals through a human nervous system.
What if there's a Love that's the foundation of the universe? As long as you insist that it has to lie down under a microscope, you'll never be able to see it.
Response to Erich, continued:
"Again, you're making a bit of a leap there. The question is, again, how do you propose that we evaluate evidence for such phenomena? Again, in such a way that can't be confused with one's imagination, etc? Again, I'm quite open minded and all ears :)"
Even the question, "how do we evaluate evidence" is still within that paradigm. You don't understand God by evaluating evidence. You understand God by letting go of the paradigm and opening your heart.
You tell the difference between this and imagination by the effects. Imagining things that are false, doesn't in the long run work to help you be fulfilled, be strong to help others, be joyful, etc. But taking that leap of faith towards something that's true, results in all of these things.
You are in a box, insisting that I climb inside your box and show you something that's outside. But to see it, you have to get out of the box. Just because you can't see it from inside that box, doesn't mean it isn't there.
Miracles of Bible:
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/attachments/screenshots/167808d1301714000-funny-strange-random-pics-1301557716604.jpg
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