Subjective Evidence of Gods

You didn't answer the question.
The factory owner is the factory owner says nothing.
Give me a name.

No, my point is that we seem to agree in some sense that it is quite possible that there is something that exists that is other than that which is part of our material world. Fair enough, but it still denotes a pre-existent truth from a human perspective. If your conjecture is correct then you can call it mindless logic, but logic itself denotes intelligence. How would this logic or intelligence exist without some form of sentience that would be able to retain that logic, whether it was we know as mind or not? Not really. I'm not trying to claim any absolutes. I'm just trying to build a reasonable subjective case for a creative intelligence. It is just that if there is logic or intelligence that exists apart from our material existence it seems to me that quite possibly that intelligence very well might have something to do with us being here. With circular reasoning based on that assumption I tried to make a case for it. But isn't that what you would expect? We are discussing "Subjective Evidence, (we should probably think Conclusions rather than evidence based on previous discussion), of Gods". You are supporting your position which is essentially that everything including intelligence has come from non-intelligent source and I'm supporting my belief that my intelligent conclusion has come from a pre-existing intelligent source. (My particular bias might be showing in that last statement. )I'm not intending a human like intelligence necessarily, I'm just speaking of an intelligence in whatever form it might exist. Mind you, other than dog, human intelligence is all I know so maybe we should go with that. But in a discussion like this that is inevitable. We both do it. The only direct evidence we have, such as the Bible, science, philosophy all require subjective conclusions as to how to they should be interpreted to come to a conclusion about the existence or non-existence of god(s). You say that you haven't assumed that god doesn’t exist. I don't buy that. You have only assumed that some form of "objectivity" exists external to our material world. You then assume that "objectivity" is mindless, or to put it another way godless. I'm just contending that it isn't illogical to consider that just possibly that objectivity" is part of a creative intelligence. Once again, we are both employing circular logic but there isn't really another avenue to go down in this discussion.

Refusing to assume that something is present is not the same as actively assuming that it isn't present. I no more assume an absence of God than I assume an absence of James Bond, Mickey mouse or squirrels. I only "assumed" that mathematics is objective. Nothing more.Look - I saw you get pounced upon for suggesting that some form of morality can be considered objective and independent of the human mind in some sense and it seemed only fair to try and point out why your idea isn't as crazy as some might think it is.Many do say that mathematics is true in some objective Platonic sense. Things like Pythagoras theorem are the same for all. It isn't an opinion. It is as true for me as it is you and as true for the ancient Greeks as it is true for the alien mathematician in a far off galaxy. It is arguably objectively true.So if maths is objectively true and morality can be derived from some sort of mathematics of game theory involving non-zero sum reciprocal altruism (effectively a mathematical basis for why it is self advantageaous to co-operate with, rather than shit, on others) then arguably it can be said that this form of moral reasoning is objectively true in the same sort of Platonic sense that pythagoras theorem is true. Possibly. Maybe.But to re-interpret Platonic mathematical existence to some unfounded ethereal form of existence and start introducing creative, intelligent agents with a sense of right and wrong based on love and compassion rather than mathematical self interest is completely unfounded.To do this is simply a demonstration of the sort of flawed human psychological proclivities to anthropomorphicise everything in exactly the way we have been discusiing here and elsewhere.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Straggles tries again, still fails to understand. His understanding is faulty, or his ability to actually read my posts has some defect in it. I've already answered this in Message 265 -- the fact that Straggles doesn't comprehend the difference between what I have consistently claimed and his misrepresentation of it is not my problem. I note in passing that many people have had this problem with Straggles in the past. Which is also another mis-characterization, and is more of Straggles fantasies about my position (some of which, like this, are rather humorous, if they weren't so pervasively wrong and repeated ad nauseum. Without substantiating empirical objective evidence positions 3, 4 and 5 are valid, while 1, 2, 6 (as Straggles claimed last time he listed) and 7 are invalid.I do not see a category for "complete agnosticism" there. I do see agnosticism mixed with opinion pro or con, that there is a spectrum of agnostic positions, and note that without substantiating empirical objective evidence, all you have is opinion. Opinion is something that Straggles has lots of. The problem is that he confuses his opinions with conclusions based on facts or objective evidence. If you don't know, then the honest thing is to say that you don't know. If you have an opinion about it, you can make a decision based on your opinion (which is based on your worldview (which is based on your lifetime experiences, education and beliefs)) and so it is necessarily an opinion rather than a logical conclusion.Anyone claiming a 6 position (like Straggles) without substantiating objective empirical evidence is basing their claim on opinion and deluding themselves that it is a rational logical position. The usual claim is that it is "more probable" ... without having a basis for making the assessment of relative probabilities, and usually end up claiming that it is more plausible when confronted with their inability to present evidence to substantiate their position.http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Pseudoskepticism

quote:

---

Kaviraj2: RT @postanes: Characteristics of pseudoskeptics (4) Presenting insufficient evidence or proof - http://t.co/GjiqvnW
Talirman: Characteristics of pseudoskeptics (6) Counter-claims based on plausibility rather than empirical evidence - http://t.co/96WjaKH

---

Isn't that a familiar theme that runs through Straggles arguments? See previous answer on Message 265. Failure (or refusal) to comprehend the answers provided is not my problem. Amusingly, science makes one assumption as the basis for testing concepts against objective empirical evidence -- that the objective empirical evidence represents reality.ie -- science (ALL science) assumes that "Last Thursdayism" is false. If a thing is detectable, it may not be empirically detectable, and there are reasons that they could not be tested. One of them would be the appearance of inconsistent results. Curiously, one of the predictions I have previously made\noted about supernatural beings etc, is that the results of encounters\experiences could well appear to be inconsistent due to a large variety of possibilities and the problems of (human) comprehending what is happening. Here we have another false dichotomy by Straggles, who seems to dearly love living in a black and white world. The simple answer is that there are many possible sources that (as yet) are not "empirically detectable." One is the well known and documented religious experience.If you met a supernatural being, would that not de facto be classed as a religious experience?Are there documents of religious experiences where people claim to have met supernatural beings?Can you detect when religious experiences occur (ie changes in brain activity)?Can you empirically test religious experiences to see if they actually are experiences of supernatural beings etc?Can religious experiences be broadly or narrowly classed as consistent? In other words, you can have detectable phenomena that cannot be empirically tested, so we are in the "otherwise" category, and Straggles admits he does not have a test to determine whether supernatural effects are involved.To come back to the topic at hand, this would count as subjective evidence either for god/s or evidence that does not rule out the possibility of god/s existing at this time.Enjoy.

That's fine, but if there is truth that exists, regardless of whether or not this universe exists, then I still maintain that truth, be it Platonic, mathematical or moral requires some form of intelligence. Do you suggest that truth or knowledge of any kind can exist in a mental vacuum?

Hello every one. I hope you have all been doing well. Straggler you didn't post any of Chuck 77's comments so I am assuming you are talking about something like eyewitness testimony here. If so and so says they saw a space ship land in their back yard that's pretty subjective I think. However we can't discount subjective evidence simply because it is subjective. This kind of evidence is used all the time in our legal system. The more extraordinary the testimony is then I would say the more extraordinary the corroborating evidence needs to be.How many other people saw the space ship? How well did all the witnesses hold up under strong interrogation? Did all there testimonies basically agree without seeming too much like collusion? What mental state are the witnesses in? These questions all play a very important part in analyzing subjective evidence.Take for example the story of the resurrection of Jesus. The first question of how many claimed to see it? Over 500 people claimed they saw Jesus alive again for a period of 40 days after the crucifixion. And not just outsiders, but his closest followers- which would make an imposter hypothesis not plausible. The next question, how well did they hold up to strong interrogation? They were exposed to the most extreme form of interrogation possible, and they and their families were threatened to be tortured to death if they didn't recant their claims. They chose death. Since its unlikely you would ever find that many people willing to die for what they knew to be false (martyrs make terrible liars) this would seem to eliminate the possibility of collusion. Finally, since the possibility that maybe 500 people all had a mental hallucination simultaneously, is a bigger miracle than the actual resurrection, It's not likely they were all mental.The only conclusion based on the "subjective evidence" is that the event occurred.

Names of these witnesses please. At least can you provide the original source that lists the 500. Please show your source for this claim.Oh is your source for all of this your bible? Seems a little lacking in sourcing. Even if what you claim happened, who has said that they knew it was false. Just because a group of people believe something does not make it true.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

You are correct. And, if this accurately described reality, then your conclusion would be correct.However, your analogy does not accurately describe the situation we're investigating. You seem to have forgotten all the different religions. Even all the different Christian religions.We don't have a bunch of folks who see the same spaceship.
We have many folk who claim to see 1 kind of spaceship, and another many folk who claim to see a different spaceship, and another crew who say it wasn't a spaceship at all, but a time machine... for over 100,000 different "things." Plus, we have many folk who claim that no space-ship (or anything else) was ever present in the first place.Taking actual reality into account while looking at the Jesus story:
-we have lots of witnesses that say Thor actually exists
-we have lots of witnesses that say Allah exists, not Jesus
-we have lots of witnesses that say Jesus does not exist, and never did...and taking reality into account, we see that the only conclusion based on the "subjective evidence" is that we're right back where we began... with no evidence for anything happening at all.

Still though, that doesn't really help us determine who is wrong...

quote:

---

A Jain version of the story says that six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

​

A king explains to them:

​

"All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned."

​

This resolves the conflict, and is used to illustrate the principle of living in harmony with people who have different belief systems, and that truth can be stated in different ways

​

Blind men and an elephant

---

So who knows...

But you chose a different god to all the other religions - despite there being no reason to pick your god over any of the others. There is no evidence for a lack of gods, per se.
There is a huge amount of evidence that we make up gods - but that it not exactly the same.
I also see no evidence for the existence of gods.
So, I think the answer to your question: "Do you think there is more or less evidence for gods?" is: "No, I don't." I see no reason to value subjective evidence highly - but you claim it is convincing.
Do you think that I should believe your subjective evidence over a muslim's subjective evidence?
Do you think that I should believe your subjective evidence over a hindu's subjective evidence?
Please explain why? Exactly how do I (or anybody else) investigate this testimony you refer to?Edited by Panda, : No reason given.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

Note that you are still wrong.You are not doing very well - but I see little point in you trying again.

Hi Panda, Well that's okay -- you have nothing to respond to. You just post snipes and quips with no content of value, so there is nothing to "try again" about.http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Pseudoskepticism

quote:

---

Pathological Skepticism is closedmindedness with deception: it is an irrational prejudice against new ideas which masquerades as proper Skepticism. A person under the sway of Pathological Skepticism will claim to support Reason and the scientific worldview while concealing their strongly negative emotional response against any questioning of contemporary accepted knowledge. The primary symptoms of Pathological Skepticism are the presence of scorn, sneering, and ridicule in place of reasoned debate. In their arguments, pseudoskeptics will freely employ logical fallacies, rhetoric, and numerous dishonest strategies of persuasion which are intended more sway an audience rather than to expose truth, i.e. than to pursue science. Because it promotes a falsely scientific facade, Pathological Skepticism is a class of pseudoscience.

---

Enjoy.

Note that you continue to be wrong.
Your failure (or refusal) to comprehend my posts is not my problem.RADZ really should pay more attention to the people he debates with, as the falsehood of his misrepresentations are easy to demonstrate. The problem is that he is so pervasive with them, that it's like a Gish gallop to deal with all of them. AND he seems to behave like Hovind, content to believe in his distorted perceptions regardless of evidence contrary to it.

I think if you dig into that a bit, you will find that one (unknown) writer claimed that there were 500 such people. And do you have any source(s) for your claim that "they were exposed to the most extreme form of interrogation possible?" I would be interested to see some reliable documentation on that, too.

And intuitively I agree. As did all those ancient invokers of Sun gods and the like. All of those who concluded that some intelligent presence must lay behind the things that they couldn't comprehend. Because I, they and you are all human and all subject to this same intuitive need to explain everything in terms of some sort of vaguely human-like intelligent agent.But where you seem to think that this intuitive thinking is a reasonable basis for drawing the conclusion that some sort of intelligent agent must be present I recognise that this is the same flawed human thinking that has resulted in everything from false gods, to conspiracy theories via imaginary friends and the imbuement of human-mind-like properties to inanimate objects and aspects of nature.So I don't trust this intuitive thinking. Because the evidence suggests it isn't a reliable mathod of drawing conclusions. I have absolutely no idea what is required for "truth" to exist. This is just a rehashing of "Why is there something rather than nothing?" isn't it?And to that I would say that there are all sorts of philosophically conceivable answers and very possibly some answers that aren't even able to be conceived by humans. But of the vast array of possible answers "God" is just one rather limited and very human one.It is an answer that almost certainly says more about the psychology of man than it does the truth of existence.