Detecting God

That's not the point, though. The point is that while we cannot detect it, it is irrational and unreasonable to claim that it is there. There are an infinite number of things we can claim to exist prior to their detection. Only a finite number of them will actually exist. Therefore, claiming something exists "before we are able to detect anything" is incredibly irrational and unreasonable. In naively taking this statement as it is... you are absolutely correct.
It also absolutely lowers the status of God or The Supernatural or whatever else is being discussed to the same level as ghosts, goblins and golden-golfing-gophers.In taking this statement as an indication of the possiblity for existance for something... we must consider all the other infinite, ridiculous ideas that come along for the ride. Therefore, it is useless. Therefore, it is irrational and unreasonable to use such a statement in order to persuade anyone in thinking the possibility of existance of that something has increased above 0.00%

Yes, I know. I agreed with you in that previous post. My point is that "lack of being able to detect it" also doesn't provide a rational or reasonable basis to think it actually exists.

Objective within the confines of the Bible... and the Bible is far from being objectively true. Therefore, Gideon's test does nothing to give us anything objective currently. I agree. All I'm saying is that all these subjective things (including the things based on personal subjectivity in my life) are irrational and unreasonable reasons to believe that something actually exists in reality. I agree that you "are to have faith". I'm just pointing out that such faith is irrational and unreasonable simply because "He could hide Himself from all objective tests for Him". If we can't detect anything, then there's nothing to base any rational and reasonable judgements upon.Let me state it this way:It is irrational and unreasonable for me to claim that my wife loves me because of the personally subjective feelings of love I get when I think of her.
It is rational and reasonable for me to claim that my wife loves me because:
-she doesn't cheat on me
-she smiles and laughs and appears to enjoy my company
-she says she loves me
-she goes out of her way to help build our lives togetherHowever, NONE of these rational and reasonable reasons PROVE that my wife loves me (equivalent to the "science doesn't prove things" stuff you always hear about)
They are only rational and reasonable reasons to build a theory that my wife loves me.
This theory can (potentially) be falsified by many things:
-my wife cheating on me
-my wife saying she doesn't love me anymore and serving me with divorce papers
-my wife sabotaging our lives and purposefully making things difficult for meAnd again with God:It is irrational and unreasonable for me to claim that God exists because of the personally subjective feelings I get when I think of Him.
It is rational and reasonable for me to claim that God exists because:
-???
-there are no points here because God is not detectableBecause we don't have any rational and reasonable points to use, we cannot create a "God really does exist" theory. Without any of those points, any theory is unfalsifiable as well.

No. We weren't talking about what I see when I look at that in the general sense. We were talking about how I see that applying to our topic. And yes, that's how I see it applying to our topic about detecting God. Yes, that's what this topic is about. Did you read the opening post? I'll quote it for you here: Sounds pretty objective to me. I agree. That's why I said none of that proves she loves me. I think it's more likely that her concept of "love" isn't the same as my concept of "love"... in which case, as far as I'm concerned... she doesn't love me. If you have any points on how to detect God, objectively (as this topic is about), please go ahead and let everyone know. An excellent plan. Although that really wouldn't "show me" that God exists. It would just show me that you're a nice person.

...but it's not objective at all. There's nothing about it that can be shown to be objectively true. It's just a unverified claim that is claimed to be shown in an objective way. That's not objective in the sense of being any help in detecting God, objective things can be verified. Don't get sensitive, I was just saying. But that wasn't the point. The point was that there is a fail-safe "love detector" for me to identify if my wife loves me. Based upon the rational and reasonable indications that my wife loves me. The additional point was that there is not any rational and reasonable indications that can be used to detect God. Then perhaps we agree and there is no futher point in discussion. It is currently irrational and unreasonable to assert that God can be detected... because He can't. Or not. It's quite possible that the reason God cannot be detected is because God does not exist.

Then perhaps you could show something that is objective, yet cannot be verified? Otherwise, no, I am not confusing anything. Except I do have ways of showing it from my own personal standards. That's exactly what I showed you before.
The fact that the person who loves me may have different stanadard does nothing to reduce the objectivity of my own standards if I choose to make those standards public and hold to them.
All those rational and reasonable things I listed show that my wife loves me according to my own personal standards.
They can all be objectively falsified. You seem fond of saying such, and yet I've shown you that you're wrong.
The feelings of love I have when I think of my wife are subjective.
However, I certainly can (and do) objectively detect my wife's love for me according to the rational and reasonable things I've already listed.If you're going to claim I can't do this, you're going to have to show how the things I listed cannot be objectively tested for, or why it would be impossible for these things to be indications of "love". Here's the list again: ...sounds pretty objective to me, also sounds like love as far as any average couple in North America goes... but perhaps you can think of something I can't....perhaps what you are trying to get at is that I cannot read my wife's mind and it's possible (however slim) that she is deceiving me and actually does not love me. This is true, but again, irrelevant. The same objective, rational, reasonable list of things I have still exists and it's still objective, rational and reasonable. There does exist a possibility that it will lead to an inaccurate conclusion... but this is the same with any and all scientific theories as well. It's called "tentativity". Exactly. Of course, this is a useless statement in trying to detect that aliens do, actually, exist.
Without confirmed objective tests, it is irrational and unreasonable to think that aliens exist... and the same with God. Even if it might be true.Take the planet Pluto, for example. It's always existed (as long as humans have been around, anyway). However, before there was any verified, objective indication that Pluto existed, it was irrational and unreasonable to believe it existed. You would have been right... you just wouldn't be rational or reasonable about it.Similar to me saying there are 50 more planets in our solar system beyond Pluto. Maybe we haven't detected them yet. Maybe they actually exist. Regardless... it is currently irrational and unreasonable for me to think that they actually do exist until there is some way to detect them.