Zone1 Why is it so tough to believe in God?

[Meriweather]

No he didn't. See, he gave what he claimed where unique claims to the Abrahamic God. Only to be rebuffed by me citing similar claims but NOT by Abrahamic Gods and even different understanding of claims about Gods within the interpretation of the Abrahamic Gods. Directly invalidating his claims.

You can't claim something's unique when I can give verifiable counterexamples.

No that did not invalidate his points, but Roberts' points.

 

[Meriweather]

Your analogy is flawed. In ordinary witness testimony, people differ on details of the same event. But in your case, the supposed witnesses don’t even agree on what the event was, where it happened, or what it means.

Imagine 10,000 people all claiming experiences beyond human understanding, but disagreeing on every particular. Then you single out number 9,973 and declare them correct, because of faith. That’s not how evidence works.

You’re ignoring both the implausibility of the claim itself and the fact that the witnesses contradict each other at the deepest level. That’s the epistemic trap faith creates: certainty in one account while disregarding the overwhelming disagreement in the rest.

Do you give the same weight to the factors were people agree?

 

[forkup]

Your claim seems to be that since their are a variety of religions, and a large number of people practice the religion of their nation, family, or community, God does not exist.

My claim is that since I can correlate what God version people are likely to hold based on location and time. A God version that is asserted as true by its people. That it's absurdly unlikely that that God version is actually real. And that that's something you even agree with for all religions besides the one you just so happen to practice. That one you are convinced is real.

I don't claim god doesn't exists, since you can, and people do, define god in millions of ways. So it would be silly to claim something that isn't clearly defined doesn't exist. I do say that your definition of god (and the versions others hold that dare to define god with testable claims attached) doesn't exist.

How do various religious factions throughout the world/nation factor into the claim God doesn't exist? Would that same theory hold true for other claims? For example, would you be as quick to claim beauty does not exist because people can't always agree on what makes up beauty? What is the difference between the claims, "I believe that is a beautiful picture" and "I believe in God"? There are clearly reasons behind each statement that have nothing to do with physical evidence.

The difference is that beauty is subjective, it varies by perception and culture. Your claim that God exists, however, is presented as an objective truth.

If you argue that belief in God is subjective, then you’re admitting it functions like a human construct rather than an external reality. That’s the flaw in your analogy: it equates subjective judgments with objective truth claims, which is a false equivalence.

 

[forkup]

Then state how God is not unique in any way. And, no, you did not point out failings in any premise.

God isn’t unique in any meaningful way, there have been thousands of mutually exclusive god-claims, each asserted as uniquely true. If you want to argue that a vague, unfalsifiable ‘man in the sky’ concept is unique, that only makes it epistemically meaningless.

And pointing out uniqueness doesn’t help prove your god-claim correct. The conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise, it’s a non sequitur

 

[forkup]

No that did not invalidate his points, but Roberts' points.

So, let me get this straight: failing to cite a unique trait about one religion somehow invalidates the point that people reject all god-claims except their own? That doesn’t follow.

The observation stands regardless, mutual rejection of competing claims is independent of whether any one religion can be called ‘unique.’ The logic here is another non sequitur.

 

[forkup]

Do you give the same weight to the factors were people agree?

I don’t give agreement any weight until it can be verified.

If 10,000 people watch an event and a handful claim they saw a unicorn, though they can’t even agree on its color, while others claim dragons or something else entirely, would you treat the unicorn claim as credible just because a few agreed?

That’s the same problem with god-claims. Across history, the only consistent factor is a vague idea, sometimes a sky-father ruling from above, sometimes an earth-mother tied to soil and fertility, sometimes a sun blazing overhead or a moon watching at night, sometimes a storm-thrower hurling thunder, sometimes a sea-dweller in the depths, sometimes an underworld ruler beneath the ground, sometimes an ancestor spirit lingering in forests or mountains, sometimes a group of beings in a pantheon constantly at odds with each other, sometimes an animal-headed figure, sometimes a shapeless force, sometimes an abstract principle like Logos or Tao, sometimes a trickster spirit, sometimes a fertility idol, sometimes a cosmic egg, sometimes a duality of light and dark, sometimes a god who dies and rises again with the seasons, sometimes a god who demands blood, sometimes one who offers mercy, sometimes one who is jealous, sometimes one who is indifferent, sometimes one who is everywhere, sometimes one who is bound to a single tribe, sometimes one who lives in the sky, sometimes one who lives in the soil, sometimes one who lives in the water, sometimes one who lives in the stars, sometimes one who lives in the ethereal plane, sometimes one who is invisible, sometimes one who is carved in stone, sometimes one who is worshipped in fire, sometimes one who is feared in shadows.

I hope the absurdity of claiming agreement is obvious.

So why should it hold any weight?

 

[ding]

Afraid it does

Belief in God requires a belief in magical beings that nobody has seen.

God is no more magical than the universe popping into existence not being created from existing matter. Both only seem magical to you because they both exist outside of your natural existence.

 

[ding]

...ding can better present the scientific evidence than I.

Don't shortchange yourself. God is transcendent. Which means the only evidence anyone will ever have for God's existence - besides personal revelation and the historicity of Jesus Christ - is the indirect evidence from what God created.

It's comical when anyone acts like they expect that there is something more. It's considerably more comical than their arguments that they can't prove a negative or that God can't exist because bad things happen to good people or that God can't exist because God is an immoral meanie. All of which are comical in and of themselves and reveal their dismal level of intellect.

 

[ding]

Pointing out that belief correlates strongly with geography and historical context isn’t a moral argument, it’s an empirical observation. It’s not about what should be believed, but about what is believed, and where. That’s not a judgment. It’s a pattern. And it’s testable.

If every culture produces its own gods, and every era reshapes them, then the burden isn’t on me to look inward, it’s on you to explain why your god just happens to match your coordinates and temporal location.

The fact that belief in a power greater than man has existed since the beginning of man, in overwhelming numbers, in every society ought to give you a clue that it's hardwired into man. So... if we take the Darwinian approach, it should be clear to you that belief in God provides a functional advantage that atheism does not have. Otherwise, belief in God would have died out long ago. I'm sure that even with your limited intellect you could figure out what those functional advantages might be.

 

[ding]

Neither Hinduism or Budhism is Abrahamic.

So what? Neither of those religions claim to be God seeking man. Maybe take it up with Huston Smith.

 

[ding]

Judaism has resurrection different from the Christian one. So what is "the" resurrection? So does Egypt, Greece, Canaanite, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, etc. etc.

Sure, sounds unique to me.

When you say "the resurrection" what you are saying is that you believe one of the many claims and reject all others.

Maybe look at the historical evidence for each and then get back to me. Try being objective.

 

[Meriweather]

My claim is that since I can correlate what God version people are likely to hold based on location and time. A God version that is asserted as true by its people. That it's absurdly unlikely that that God version is actually real. And that that's something you even agree with for all religions besides the one you just so happen to practice. That one you are convinced is real.

How are you defining "God version"? For example, how many versions are there of you? For myself, there is the daughter version, the sister version, the best friend version, the co-worker version, the mom version, the wife version, the student version, the teacher version, the online version, the neighbor version.

Perhaps you are thinking of the differences in doctrine and/or dogma?

I don't claim god doesn't exists, since you can, and people do, define god in millions of ways. So it would be silly to claim something that isn't clearly defined doesn't exist. I do say that your definition of god (and the versions others hold that dare to define god with testable claims attached) doesn't exist.

I've already pointed out there is a great deal of subjective evidence that does exist. When subjective evidence is accepted for any number of things, then it is equally acceptable evidence when it comes to God.

 

[ding]

That’s Pascal’s Wager in costume: “Believe, just in case.” But here’s my typical counter.

What if God doesn’t reward belief without reason? What if this life is a test, not of obedience, but of discernment? What if the real filter isn’t faith, but common sense?

Maybe the gullible are being weeded out. Maybe the God worth following wouldn’t want followers who believe out of fear, coercion, or cultural inertia.

I would like this god better and I have equal evidence for him. Meaning... none at all.

Clearly you don't understand Paschal's Wager. Pascal wasn't arguing just in case. Pascal was arguing that the benefits of belief are so numerous and material that even if God doesn't exist the benefit of believing in God justifies the belief in and of itself.

In other words, Pascal was arguing the functional advantage of belief. Which according to the Darwinian principle of natural selection explains why belief in God has existed in overwhelming numbers in every society since the beginning of man.

 

[rightwinger]

God is no more magical than the universe popping into existence not being created from existing matter. Both only seem magical to you because they both exist outside of your natural existence.

This is my magic

 

[rightwinger]

Clearly you don't understand Paschal's Wager. Pascal wasn't arguing just in case. Pascal was arguing that the benefits of belief are so numerous and material that even if God doesn't exist the benefit of believing in God justifies the belief in and of itself.

If that is the case, you don’t really believe

 

[ding]

You apparently missed the point. You intelligence is much lower than that of the angels that you are under their manipulation. Here's the proof!

Science is experiment based. Humans completely lack the ability to go to another space another realm to establish experiments. That is to say, science is incapable of detecting even the simplest existences as long as they don't locate inside our own space/environment. On the other hand, spirituality as an advocate from the very beginning of humanity, is never abouth existences inside our own realm. It's all about existences outside of our realm, which science is completely futile, and completely irrelevant!

You think that science being relevant is exactly the proof that you are fooled as told/propheised.

If we are being manipulated and made to do things, then we have no free will. Are you sure you want to keep making that argument?

As for your belief that science has no place in understanding the invisible qualities of God, maybe check out Romans 1:19-20.

Science is the study of nature to discover the order within nature so as to be able to make predictions of nature.

"The physical world is entirely abstract and without ‘actuality’ apart from its linkage to consciousness. It is primarily physicists who have expressed most clearly and forthrightly this pervasive relationship between mind and matter, and indeed at times the primacy of mind." Arthur Eddington wrote, “the stuff of the world is mind‑stuff. The mind‑stuff is not spread in space and time." Von Weizsacker stated what he called his “Identity Hypothesis; that consciousness and matter are different aspects of the same reality. In 1952 Wolfgang Pauli said, "the only acceptable point of view appears to be the one that recognizes both sides of reality -- the quantitative and the qualitative, the physical and the psychical -- as compatible with each other, and can embrace them simultaneously . . . It would be most satisfactory of all if physis and psyche (i.e., matter and mind) could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality.

Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is the constant presence of Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create." ~George Wald

 

[ding]

This is my magic

View attachment 1184449

No. It's the periodic table, dummy.

What exactly do you believe it proves?

 

[ding]

If that is the case, you don’t really believe

Your leap in logic is astounding.

 

[rightwinger]

Is friendship fake? Are relationships fake?

You can have friendships and relationships without God

 

[Meriweather]

The difference is that beauty is subjective, it varies by perception and culture. Your claim that God exists, however, is presented as an objective truth.

If you argue that belief in God is subjective, then you’re admitting it functions like a human construct rather than an external reality. That’s the flaw in your analogy: it equates subjective judgments with objective truth claims, which is a false equivalence.

Where did I present God as "objective truth" when "objective truth" by definition is physical evidence? That's is moving the goal posts, and moving goal posts is actually an admission that one concedes the point under discussion--in this case subjective evidence.

As far as objective truths, one would have to be willing and able to truly and carefully research and study Eucharistic miracles where actual evidence is present; the healing miracles at Lourdes, the Shroud of Turin, the image of Mary on the Juan Diego's cloak. But as we were not discussing objective evidence, so let's return to the subjective.

I said at the outset I, personally, have no objective evidence of God. I have testimony that is real and true, but as there is no physical proof for my testimony it does not fall under objective evidence, but subjective evidence. This testimony cannot be dismissed as a false equivalence, first because I had already stated it does not fall into objective evidence, but subjective evidence. And because in other matters, subjective evidence can also be--and is often--accepted as truth.