Evidence for God

Are you kidding? Chocolate is terrible evidence for God! He made it so yummy, but so bad for us. If he really loved us, a typical visit to the doctor would run like this;Doctor: Now, are you eating enough chocolate?Patient: Yes Doc.Doctor: Good, because you can't have too much of the stuff you know. Also be sure that you're getting enough of your other major food groups, like cake and nachos. See you next year!Welcome to EvC by the way Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Ahhh, the desperate and plaintive cry of the solipsist...The sad thing about this particular species of bullshit is that you almost certainly don't believe a word of it. If the world isn't real, why don't you jump off tall building? The answer, of course, is that you are perfectly aware that you do exist, as does everyone else.Taking refuge behind solipsism is a pathetic admission of having lost the argument. It is also a ridiculous waste of time, both yours and that of others. If you do not believe that others exist, you are wasting your time talking to us.You recently posted a thread entitled "Questions for Atheists". Why on Earth would you canvass the opinions of fictional characters? Again, the likely answer is that you know that other people do exist and you are merely using this solipsistic piffle as a smoke-screen to disguise the fact that your evidence for God (remember the topic at all?) consists of precisely sod all.Your argument might impress a fourteen year old on acid, but you are wasting your time trying to bring it up in a discussion with grown-ups.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

How do you know you know what pain feels like? I believe that the world exists because, real or not, it is the only world available to me.I have not broken your argument because I'm not attempting to. You are quite right when you say that we cannot know with absolute certainty that reality is really real. It's just that it's a pointless argument that adds nothing to our knowledge and generally wastes time. The fact that you are still just as keen to avoid pain from potentially imaginary causes as you would be to avoid pain from real causes should be enough to tell you this.Your potentially unreal world and my potentially real world are effectively indistinguishable, so why obfuscate other, possibly more interesting arguments with this kind of childish and pathetic wankery?Mutate and SurviveP.S. If you do come across any evidence for God, be sure to let us know.Edited by Granny Magda, : Punctuation typo.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Thank you. Much appreciated.The reason I have so little tolerance for this kind of argument is because of someone I used to live with. He thought he was a philosopher. Whilst he was a very lovely man in many ways, he was not a philosopher. He was rather, an alcoholic who drank too much special brew. After what felt like a lifetime of "can-we-really-know-anything" tedium, my lifetime stock of patience for solipsism has worn very thin. It's an intellectual dead end; what more can you say?

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

By choosing to pursue so pointless an excuse for an argument, you have embraced defeat. This thread is entitled "Evidence for God". If nothing can be known, there can be no evidence for God worth speaking of.The point I am trying to impress upon you is that whilst it may be impossible to absolutely refute solipsism, it is also impossible to do anything interesting or useful with it. It gets us nowhere. It is vapid, worthless and, most criminal of all, very, very dull. Grow up.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

By definition, atheists tend to reject any arguments for God, but OK. Well, this is the "Evidence for God" thread. Right. Proof belongs to the realm of mathematics and formal logic. This thread is about evidence. I understand the difference thanks.Now do you have any evidence for God or not?Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Naturally the Torah agrees with the Torah. This comes as no surprise. Unfortunately for you, there are plenty of other religious books out there, all claiming to be true. They can't all be right. In order to stand out from the crowd you really need a bit more than that. What is it about your scripture-of-choice that marks it out as being so special? Now that really is a bizarre argument. One might as well argue that the existence of the Native Australian people proves that the Rainbow Serpent is real. It doesn't. How so? That has to be one of the most shameless examples of a bare un-evidenced assertion that I've ever seen. Simply asserting it won't make it true you know.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Is this meant to be a statement or a question? It's not poking me in the eye though, is it? You aren't far wrong though. Even if you could bring compelling evidence of the Jewish God's existence, I would not follow him, on account of his being a genocidal maniac, if the Torah is to be believed. Things like that just upset me a bit.If however, you can provide compelling evidence that he does exist, I will concede my mistake. I admit that I would be dismayed if you were to provide evidence for the existence of the Abrahamic God. I am not only convinced that he does not exist, I am glad that he doesn't.If however, you can provide compelling evidence that he does exist, I will concede my mistake. Forgive me if I don't hold my breath though. Everyone is manipulated by their biases to a greater or lesser extent, you included Op-n M-nd. Yes, in a way, it's my fault that you have been completely unable to make a coherent argument for God's existence. How very wrong of me. Your unwillingness to answer the questions I raised in my last post* is all my fault. I'm so sorry.How about, instead of hurling around your irrelevant ad hominems, you actually answer my questions*, hmmm? Yes, I read that post. Your logic falls down at your assumption that atheism is based solely upon scientific explanations for natural phenomena, when in fact, that is only one aspect of it.I don't believe in God primarily because I have never seen any compelling reason to believe in him. No more rationalisation is required. I would imagine that ancient atheists felt a similar way, although I cannot say for sure. For someone with an open mind, you seem very keen to tell other people what they are thinking. Stop it. It's rude and childish. I fancy that I know what I think rather better than you do. Don't start all that again... More solipsism. Oh dear. I would suggest that it would be rather difficult to personally perform every experiment ever conducted, although I have spent plenty of time searching for fossils and I am yet to find any fossilised Nephilim or pre-Cambrian rabbits.If you wish to argue that the entirity of scientific knowledge is wrong, do it elsewhere. This thread, as I have repeatedly said, is for "Evidence for God". None of the above constitutes evidence for God. Try again. What all of them? WTF has this got to do with anything? I might reasonably ask the same question of you, especially considering that you have not even bothered trying to answer my questions*. A pity.*Unanswered Questions; If you have any intention of answering these questions, or attempting to rebut my points from the last post, go ahead. Otherwise, stop whining and blaming me for the weakness of your arguments.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Naturally, you think you are right... No. The existence of a world proves only that the world exists. It does not prove that the world was created, in the sense of being deliberately created by a sentient creator. There could be some other cause, that does not require or involve a creator. Indeed, we have a very satisfying description of the universe, going right beck to its earliest stages which does not require a creator.You are seeking to define a creator into existence by describing the universe as " a creation". This is unreasonable and illogical. The universe is created, so there must have been a creator. How do we know there was a creator? Creation. This is shoddy and circular logic. It's also fairly rich, coming from someone who has recently been arguing that there is no evidence that the universe exists. You can't have your cake and eat it you know. False. Particle decay gives every appearance of having no cause. From the Wiki article;

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Particle decay is the spontaneous process of one elementary particle transforming into other elementary particles.

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My emphasis.Besides, even if we accept that an effect requires a cause, there is still no reason why that cause should be a god or gods. There could be some other cause. The fact that you can't think of one or don't like the sound of it is irrelevant . It does however render the creator-based explanation for existence quite staggeringly unparsimonious, in that it begs even bigger questions and leads to an infinite regress. The explanatory power of such explanations is nil. The universe certainly had a beginning, but whether or not it will end is unknown. If you can prove that it will end, please explain how you know this. Also, please explain how you know for certain that the universe is not infinite and that time is not infinite. It's no use just asserting such things out of nowhere. Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.That is not my premise. My claim is that no evidence exists in favour of your god, so I do not believe in him. Simple.Also, if you admit that you can't be bothered to explain yourself, you are making a de facto admission of defeat. Explain yourself or don't, but don't try to imply that you have some knock-down argument that you can't be bothered to present. It's very sad. Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting. According to you. Please show how physics demonstrates this. No, the problem for you is that people demonstrate their free will on a daily basis. That constitutes evidence for free will. Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.As you can see, I believe the opposite of that. I am no determinist. Again, says you. Did it not occur to your that emergent properties of the combinations of molecules might bring about free will, rather than any specific component? Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.You go on convincing yourself that you know what I think better than I do.In summation, as regards this point, the existence of free will is not relevant to the existence of God. You may feel that free will has not been adequately explained, but that does not mean that there can be no explanation other than God. This is just a worn out argument from ignorance.Even if you feel that belief in free will is as illogical as belief in God, this does not make the God hypothesis correct, simply because other hypotheses are equally odd. Your argument must stand or fall on its own merit, not on the merit of arguments for or against free will. No, it says in the Torah that this happened. Whether it actually happened or not is debatable. How do you know that a similar claim was never made elsewhere? Have you read every holy book in existence? Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.It might not be a hoax, but rather a misunderstanding, gradual process of ongoing exaggeration, or translation error. Or it might be a hoax. It might be true, but simply pointing to the claim in the Torah will not make it true. Have you heard of a thing called Christianity? I believe it is quite popular... Of course you could mean "There is no evidence that points to any other formulation of the Jewish religion, that pre-dates Judaism.", but that would be a tautology. What do you mean exactly? Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting. More solipsism. Yawn. Are you seriously equating the evidence for 9/11 with the evidence for the Torah? I think that you'll find 9/11 to be better evidenced. That is because next year's weather is in the future and relies upon staggeringly complicated and interrelated events.Your "science might be a conspiracy" argument is ridiculously bogus. It is true that I cannot examine all the evidence for every natural phenomenon. It is true that I have to take the word of scientists in many respects, just out of a sheer lack of time. there is only so much that one person can know in one lifetime.On the other hand, the idea that a world spanning conspiracy of fraudulent scientists is so vastly less likely than the alternative, that I feel perfectly comfortable making such assumptions, especially given that whenever I have studied the evidence for scientific claims, it has been entirely consistent with the claims of the scientific establishment. What I do not do is blindly accept the word of scientists as being unimpeachable gospel truth. I am however, willing to give thousands of hard working professionals the benefit of the doubt and not harbour a paranoid fantasy that they are conspiring to deceive me, for no apparent reason. Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.Since you lecture me on retaining an open mind, yet yourself come out with statements like; that demonstrate that your mind is very much closed with regards to certain issues, you will forgive me if I ignore your sanctimonious nonsense.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

I think the feeling is mutual! That's par for the course. People on this kind of forum rarely change their minds dramatically, having already given a great deal of thought to their opinions. It's for the craic as much as anything else... and the lurkers. None of that matters though does it? Even if I were to accept your foolishness about cause and effect being essential and universal, that is still not evidence for God. There could be another cause. You need to provide specific evidence that allows us to differentiate between God and any other potential cause, something that you have monumentally failed to do. Oh, suddenly you accept what science has to say? Hypocrisy at all? As for Jewish tradition, all you have prove is that the Torah agrees with itself. Well done.By the way, God could exist in an unending universe just as easily as any other, so this is, once again, irrelevant. No-one is denying that the universe had a beginning (except you earlier, when you were denying it existed at all). Where we differ is in that you have assumed that a beginning requires a concious creative act and this assumption is where you are going wrong. About the same amount of evidence as for Abraham and Moses then? That wouldn't be much to shut about, even if it were true. You just don't get it. I have no idea how free will happens in the brain. I don't need to know the explanation for everything in order to know that it is real. I don't need to know how my computer works, to know that it does work.Just because I can't explain something doesn't mean that you get to insert God into that little gap.Once again, you have ignored my questions and offered a piffling little post. You really must try harder.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

No I didn't. That would as silly as claiming that I had proof of God's non-existence. That is nothing more than a massive cop-out. You can't just assert something like that in so vague and unsupported a way. A statement like that effectively says nothing at all. You have merely created an astonishingly crude false dichotomy, that runs something like "If there was nothing there would be no evidence for God, but something does exist, therefore there is evidence for God.", which is a total non-sequitur. OK, so how about you explain how your interpretation works. The key point here is how your interpretation of observed reality supports the God hypothesis. It is not enough to merely claim that something (or indeed, everything) is evidence, you need to explain why it is evidence and also demonstrate that your explanation has greater explanatory power than rival interpretations.Also, it might not hurt to try replying with more than a single paragraph...Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

And it has been explained to you that this is an argument from popularity and thus invalid. If you are going to make so foolish a claim as that, you will need to back it up by proving it true of every holy book ever written. If you can't do that (which you can't), then it is an invalid argument. And where does the evidence for this claim come from in the first place? The Torah and that alone. You can't use the Torah to prove itself and the testimony of Jews who were not witness to the event counts for nothing. Well that's where you're going wrong then. Tradition is no guarantee of truth. If you want to claim an unbroken tradition from Moses to the modern day, it is up to you to prove it, step by step. It is your claim, you prove it. That is not the point. The point is that the traditions could have been altered. For God's sake, you just demolished your own point! If I leave evidence of my passing, but you have no way of determining whether that evidence can be attributed to me or someone else, it is useless for practically determining whether or not it is evidence for my existence, or someone else's existence.If you can't show why something is evidence for God's existence and not the existence of something else, then you have no evidence for God.You know, at some point you might like to stop blithely repeating yourself and actually address what people are saying to you. Meaning what exactly? Why don't you check it up and bring us what you find? Do your own homework.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

One paragraph again huh? Wow, you're really putting in some effort there. How about taking your time and putting together a detailed response, maybe one that includes some citations to back up some of your claims. This isn't a chat room you know. There's no hurry. Dude, I'm starting to suspect that even you're not following your line of reasoning...Your repeated insistence that anyone who disagrees with you is too stupid to understand your argument is pathetic. People are disagreeing with you because;a) Other people have other opinions.andb) Your argument is composed of tired, mix-and-match fallacies, all of which we've heard a thousand times before. This is the very point that half the people on this thread have already made to you. Nor is there any benefit in assuming them true. You need to examine ancient texts with a sceptical, yet open mind, qualities you appear to lack. The point you are repeatedly missing is that the holy book cannot be accepted as evidence of its own veracity in the absence of alternate corroborating sources. I have asked you to back up this ludicrous drivel already. If you are unwilling or unable to do so, kindly stop bringing it up. No, it is merely a shameless and crude display of special pleading.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade