Originally posted by epiphinehasI do think a "surrendering" or letting go or otherwise manner of loss is necessary for overcoming such problems -- but not having anything to do with some divine agent.
Consider a person who climbs out of 'rock bottom' and begins with the utmost determination, but who only uses the aspects of the program which do not require the surrender to a higher power, i.e., the support of others, taking care of oneself, better living conditions, etc. - has this ever been enough to truly deliver an alcoholic from the depths of addi ...[text shortened]... ctly rationally? Could one ever discover anything really surprising living that way? Hmmm...
Originally posted by LemonJelloIs it safe to say, LJ, that your presuppositions make it impossible for you to examine without bias any evidence of God's existence?
I do think a "surrendering" or letting go or otherwise manner of loss is necessary for overcoming such problems -- but not having anything to do with some divine agent.
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Originally posted by twhiteheadHow can any evidence stand up to bias? If you already hold a certain presupposition, then you must interpret all evidence in a manner consistent with that presupposition.
Good evidence should be able to stand up to bias.
Are you a strong or weak atheist?
EDIT: I am up very late here in America and I need to crash soon. I promise I'll return to our conversation later today. I hope all is well in Cape Town. Over and out.
Originally posted by LemonJelloNot all coughs and sneezes indicate this (lol!!!) It can happen when you are touched by the spirit but so can uncontrollable laughter (which can also be induced via alcohol). You may have just had a cold!!!!
Yes, I think I can relate to those feelings and sensations you describe -- sometimes I sneeze or cough or have tingling sensations, for example. Why in the world, when one arises, should I consider it to be God-indicating?
When you say you relate to the sensations are you talking about feelings of warmth , being inspired , feeling melted or very loving inside etc?
One main approach to take with this is to re-look at things you take for granted and have not thought about much. How does someone's heart become softened so they can forgive? What is inspiration? What is creativity and where does it come from? Why are loving people described as warm? What is happening when our spirits feel lifted? Lifted by what? If you open your eyes you can see how God is touching us and helping us and sustaning our spirits all the time , it's just that it happens so close to us that we miss it.
You seem not to realise that when christians say that God is present and his spirit moves amongst us , they actually mean it?!
Originally posted by knightmeisterI'm certainly open to the God hypothesis, KM. Everything you have talked about as evidence for God is certainly compatible with the God hypothesis, but I need some reasons to think that the God hypothesis is a better explanation for them than other competing explanations. Nothing you have talked about is particularly God-indicating in this respect -- I certainly don't understand why you think God should be viewed as the best explanation for some of these occurrences.
Not all coughs and sneezes indicate this (lol!!!) It can happen when you are touched by the spirit but so can uncontrollable laughter (which can also be induced via alcohol). You may have just had a cold!!!!
When you say you relate to the sensations are you talking about feelings of warmth , being inspired , feeling melted or very loving inside etc? ...[text shortened]... n christians say that God is present and his spirit moves amongst us , they actually mean it?!
Originally posted by LemonJelloFair enough mate , but now do you have some idea what you might be looking for in the experiment? Which parts of my descriptions make sense to you and why?
I'm certainly open to the God hypothesis, KM. Everything you have talked about as evidence for God is certainly compatible with the God hypothesis, but I need some reasons to think that the God hypothesis is a better explanation for them than other competing explanations. Nothing you have talked about is particularly God-indicating in this respect -- I ...[text shortened]... tand why you think God should be viewed as the best explanation for some of these occurrences.
Originally posted by epiphinehasSo how did people get convinced that the earth was not flat, that the earth goes round the sun and that Einsteins equations were better than Newtons?
How can any evidence stand up to bias? If you already hold a certain presupposition, then you must interpret all evidence in a manner consistent with that presupposition.
Any sane person has presuppositions but many of us are willing to accept that they are wrong should conflicting evidence arise. What you are talking about is 'blind belief' which is common amongst theists but even that often gets beaten by solid evidence. For example, a creationist if reasonably intelligent and given a good education in science will actually 'convert' to accepting evolution despite the fact that it goes directly against his presuppositions.
Are you a strong or weak atheist?
I prefer to call my self a non-theist as there are too many misconceptions surrounding the word atheist. I strongly believe that God does not exist and I believe that the evidence I have seen to support such a belief is so significant as to warrant me doubting any evidence to the contrary unless such evidence is significant in the extreme. But that does not mean that I would not accept such extremely significant evidence were it presented to me. Similarly if you told me the earth was flat and provided convincing enough evidence I might accept that too. Would you?
Originally posted by twhiteheadI strongly believe that God does not exist and I believe that the evidence I have seen to support such a belief is so significant as to warrant me doubting any evidence to the contrary ---whitey
So how did people get convinced that the earth was not flat, that the earth goes round the sun and that Einsteins equations were better than Newtons?
Any sane person has presuppositions but many of us are willing to accept that they are wrong should conflicting evidence arise. What you are talking about is 'blind belief' which is common amongst theists b ...[text shortened]... e earth was flat and provided convincing enough evidence I might accept that too. Would you?
But you have to have a prior belief about what you are expecting as evidence in order to arrive at disbelief. I could say that Jupiter definitely doesn't exist if I define belief in jupiter as a large purple square just behind the moon. You would then say I had completely the wrong idea about Jupiter in the first place.
This is what CS lewis meant when he said that "the God I believe in is not the god you don't believe in" . One has to define what God might be like in order to say that such a God does not exist.
To me 90% of what atheist or non theists come out with just sounds like " there is no purple square called jupiter!!!" . I just think , "yes I know".
Originally posted by twhiteheadWhat do you believe in, sir, if you don't mind me asking.
So how did people get convinced that the earth was not flat, that the earth goes round the sun and that Einsteins equations were better than Newtons?
Any sane person has presuppositions but many of us are willing to accept that they are wrong should conflicting evidence arise. What you are talking about is 'blind belief' which is common amongst theists b ...[text shortened]... e earth was flat and provided convincing enough evidence I might accept that too. Would you?
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Originally posted by epiphinehasI don't really like using the word 'proof' outside of fields of analysis such as mathematics and formal logic. But if you're asking what sort of evidence would elicit theistic belief from me, it's going to be the sort that makes me think it is sufficiently likely that God exists. I think it will need to be evidence that bears directly on the truth of the proposition "God exists", where 'God' is clearly defined.
Good. What kind of evidence would you accept as proof of God's existence?
Except for a certain type of general interest (and except for that fact that I find some of them thoroughly insulting and awesomely terrible), I am completely uninterested in arguments of the type Tolstoy presents in A Confession. I am not interested in arguments for the practical necessity of theistic belief; I am not interested in pragmatic musings about theism; I am not interested in arguments that basically just appeal to consequences and boil down to "I think life without God would really blow; therefore, everyone should believe in God". I think those arguments simply fail to understand the nature of belief, and, what's more, they simply have nothing to do with the question of whether or not the proposition "God exists" is true. I am also not interested here in anyone else's inability to cope with the absurd: their inability to cope also has precisely nothing to do with the question of whether or not "God exists" is true. I'm not interested in theism as some vague solution to our "existential dilemma". Again, I need something that actually bears relevance to the truth of theism.
I also think testimonies of personal and immediate experience of God are (and should be viewed as) completely unpersuasive as well. Perhaps the claim is that there is some sensus divinitatis or experiential mechanism that produces or otherwise triggers the disposition to form theistic belief. So let's suppose a person cannot offer rational argument or demonstrable evidence for God's existence but claims with strong conviction to have perceptual or experiential knowledge of God's existence through such a mechanism. Should we take such testimony as relevant to the question of whether or not God exists? Or, more generally, in the absence of good independent reasons for God's existence, should we take such testimony as relevant? The answer, I think, is no, we shouldn't. This is a very interesting and intricate topic in its own right, but I happen to agree with Alvin Plantinga (a theist and philosopher who has written on this topic) when he concludes that we cannot reasonably divorce the question of whether or not this person's theistic belief is warranted from the question of whether or not God, in fact, exists. So, this particular type of testimony will not persuade me either: I'm not interested in mere assertions of unmediated experience with God or stories about how God has done x,y,z in the person's life (particularly if x,y,z have plausible natural explanations). So basically, I am also not interested in testimony that goes something like "I cannot present any evidence for God other than telling you my personal story of how God has interacted with me and worked in my life". This will not persuade.
An "experiment" such as the one knightmeister suggested in this thread frankly isn't going to work either. First, nothing about KM's method should make us think that it is a reliable method. He openly eschewed the notion of reproducibility. He openly eschewed the notions of communal reporting and peer review. Further, he didn't cite any clear predictions, so it's not even clear what, if anything, we were testing. Moreover, he did not, to my satisfaction, cite clear falsification conditions (the conditions he offered were clearly purposefully vague and plastic, in the sense that he could simply bend and mold the language in order to deny any conditions that might come along as meeting falsification). This last point is very important and goes to the question of theology and falsification. If there are no conceivable conditions that can serve to falsify the hypothesis, then experimentally speaking, the hypothesis asserts absolutely nothing. It's not clear to me that we even had grounds for testability. Beyond that, what KM would seem to have me take as evidence for the God hypothesis seems to me to be really nothing of the sort. I think we can make a very strong argument for contingent naturalism: science should not dismiss out of hand supernatural explanations, but we are quite justified in even extended exhaustive searches for natural explanations. And certainly, if we already have plausible natural explanations for x,y,z, then why should I place any confidence in supernatural explanation for them? The things that KM mentions as "evidence" for God (e.g., moments of creative inspiration, bodily sensations, feelings of compassion and love and soft-heartedness, etc.) are all things for which we have natural explanations; the leap to the supernatural here seems very dubious to me indeed. I am still at a loss as to why KM thinks I should consider such things God-indicating.
In contrast to these things above, the argument you outlined earlier is, I think, of exactly the right sort: that the testimony of others can in certain circumstances provide us with epistemic reasons for belief and thereby serve as justifier, coupled with your claims that the bible provides exactly such testimony (for reasons 1,2,…,n). If I were a Christian, I think this is certainly one avenue of witnessing I would pursue. I would try to establish the bible as a credible source (and in doing so avoid the lame circular arguments that are commonly presented). I would try to provide epistemic reasons for the resurrection and the miracles that Jesus worked since his ability to do the nomologically impossible would surely be supernatural-indicating. I would probably try to augment this with philosophical arguments that work toward the conclusion that God exists. I haven't found any such arguments to be particularly convincing, but presumably if I were a theist I would, and I would witness with those.
There is a lot captured in the purported existence of the Christian God and our relationship with him. It entails very significant claims about duality; the nature of normativity; it ascribes substantial properties to God, make claims about his temporal (un)boundedness, etc. I think there are very good arguments against many of these claims, and my belief that such a God doesn't exist is based principally on such things as the Problem of Evil, Euthyphro Dilemma, the Problem of Action, arguments from Ignorance. I am generally always interested whenever the believer tries to present considered responses to these arguments, and I would certainly find that sort of discussion relevant.
Originally posted by knightmeisterYes to the first question. But I am still not clear why such things should be viewed as God-indicating (see my post above).
Fair enough mate , but now do you have some idea what you might be looking for in the experiment? Which parts of my descriptions make sense to you and why?
Originally posted by LemonJelloThank you for the considered response, LJ. I'm really quite speechless. It would be pointless for me to respond, because I agree with everything you've written. I would just add that, philosophically, you will never be satisfied. Even as a Christian I am keenly aware that my beliefs aren't philosophically "air tight." Faith comes from somewhere else; it is not intellectual (though many of us, myself included, sometimes wish it were). At some point, after all the argumentation has exhausted itself, you should consider "counting the cost" (Luke 14:25-33), as Christ once said. What you would have to give up, what you would gain, by trusting Christ and following Him. In the end, it will be the Holy Spirit of God who convinces you, not a Christian or a good defense of faith... That said, I don't think I can be of any more service to you. I'm not exactly qualified to speak intelligently about the Euthyphro Dilemma, etc. Keep on keepin' on, brother.
I don't really like using the word 'proof' outside of fields of analysis such as mathematics and formal logic. But if you're asking what sort of evidence would elicit theistic belief from me, it's going to be the sort that makes me think it is sufficiently likely that God exists. I think it will need to be evidence that bears directly on the truth of th ...[text shortened]... would certainly find that sort of discussion relevant.