When dealing with an empiricist who wants evidence that God exists, and yet thinks evidence—for it to be considered evidence—must be empirical in nature, ask him the following question: “What kind of empirical evidence could possibly be given for an immaterial being such as God?” If they say “none,” then point out that they are asking for the impossible. What would it prove, then, if you cannot deliver? Nothing. It just proves that the wrong question is being asked.
Insisting on empirical evidence before one will believe in the existence of God is like insisting on chemical evidence of your wife’s love for you before you’ll believe she loves you. One cannot supply chemical proof for love, and neither can one supply empirical proof of God’s existence, but that does not mean either is false. The problem is not a lack of evidence for God’s existence, but an arbitrary restraint on the kind of evidence the atheist is willing to accept as evidence. That is what needs to be challenged. Empirical evidence is not the only kind of evidence one can appeal to in support of a claim.
I should point out, however, that while there cannot be direct empirical evidence for an immaterial being, we can infer the existence of such a being from the effects it may cause in the material world. For example, we can infer the existence of God from the empirical evidence that the universe began to exist since anything which begins to exist requires an external cause, and God is the only kind of causal entity external to the universe that is sufficient to explain the effect in question.
See also Empirical Evidence and the Existence of God.
Thinking to Believe 
January 30, 2012 at 12:43 pm
This is a very interesting question. I like your argument that asking for evidence, where none could possibly be given, is not a sensible way of approaching the issue.
However, in my opinion, postulating an entity for which empirical evidence can’t exist, even theoretically, is highly problematic in itself. That’s because I could assert the existence of just about anything, and as long as it’s not empirically verifiable, no one would be able to contradict me.
In the case of love, we actually do have some empirical evidence, e.g. my wife smiles when I’m around, she tells me that she loves me, etc. But in the case of God, it doesn’t seem like there are any clear-cut arguments that will ever convince our hypothetical empiricist.
Anyway, great post, I look forward to reading more.
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January 30, 2012 at 2:39 pm
Scott,
“However, in my opinion, postulating an entity for which empirical evidence can’t exist, even theoretically, is highly problematic in itself. That’s because I could assert the existence of just about anything, and as long as it’s not empirically verifiable, no one would be able to contradict me.”
What you must remember is that empirical evidence isn’t the only kind. Theists present other evidence(philosophical arguments for example),so it’s not simply making something up and claiming it’s true because it is not empirically verifiable. There is good reason for theism.
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January 30, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Yet supernaturalists do indeed ever try to base their argumenttation emprircally! Why, they try to explain that science shows a real begginning of the Cosmos- Craig.Rather than letting natural causes- of which empirically we do have knowledge- be the actual efficient, necessary,primary and sufficient reasons as they indeed are per the presumption of naturalism, they invoke divine input as the Primary Cause and Ultimate Explanation.
Some claim that miracles exist that they claim is empirically verifiable.Supernaturalists find religious as empirically validated,even though they are just people’s own minds at work.
Anyway, the burden of evidence rests on you as y’all claim that an immaterial entity does in fact exist. Per the argument from physical minds,no, because we only have knowledge of embodies ones. And ti’s no begged question to note that , it would be just another theistic argument from ignorance to thus claim such a mind can exist. Furthermore, psychologists find no souls, so that further disconfirms the disembodied notion.
Supernatural claims rest on the arguments from personal incredulity and from ignorance, which lie behind their other arguments.
Yes, the love disanalogy is so true!That’s empirically verified. Like haught John Haght you’d claim that we naturalistslrationalists beg the question of no other venues of knowledge other than science. No, we do in fact recognize other rational venues such as art, history and such. Ti’s such as he who beg the question of those other venues. Now, he might allege intuition,tradition or revelation but they cannot count whatsoever.
Thus, what is the empirical evidence or any other evidence for His very existence that we naturalists haven’t already illuminated as false.
http://skepticicality.blogspot.com
http:// caneades.aimoo.com
http://leucippusofga.aimoo.com
http://the buy-bull.posterous.com
http://fathergriggs.wordpress.com
http:// leucippusofga.blogs/fi And around sicty other ones will give anyone a proper introduction to the debae bewixt naturalism and supernaturalism.
I encourage others to come here,because it is friendly and comprehensive.
Thanks!
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January 30, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Someone who is very intelligent and very powerful created this universe. The design argument is very persuasive, and regardless of what detractors now claim, it has not been defeated. We can see butterflies and we witness the birth of babies. Neither can be explained by natural causes. Period. We see the work of God. We see His shadow. That is empirical evidence. If we find a watch on mars, will that not be empirical evidence that someone was there before we landed? Randy
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January 30, 2012 at 8:34 pm
Randy, Carneades defeated all teleological arguments-from reason, to design, probablity and fine-tuning eons ago in dismissing Chrysippus analogy of seeming desing with a builder-begged question. Lamberth’s argument from pareidolia notes that just as people see the pareidolia of Marian appearances, so people see the pareidoalias of intent and design when reality only shows teleonomy and patterns. Scientits are investigating how and why people see patterns and pareidolias for patterns.
Lamberth’s teleonomic/atelic argument notes that as science finds no intent behind Nature, then God would not be God without that intent showing. Otherwis,e one makes the new Omphalos argument, following John HIck’s eptistemic distance argument that He made matters ambiguos as to His influence in the Cosmos so as not to overcome our free will, thereby deceiving us as the old Omphalos tells us that He deceives us into thnking that objects are ancient when they are no more than 10,000 years old.
No intent rules, and thus He does not have the referents of Grand Miracle Monger, Grand Designer and so forth, and also lacking coherent and non-contradictory attributes, He as we igostic-igtheists note, He can exist no more than can a square circle or married bachelor, and thus by analysis rather than by dogma, and not requiring us to traverse the Cosmos nor have omniscience ourselves, we indeed can so declare!
No, we see neither His shadow or ambiguity abour Him,because without that intent neither can come forth!
Natural causes, per Flew’s the presumption of naturalism notes that they and natural explanations themselves are the efficient, necessary, primary and sufficient causes: they are the primary cause- no,Aquinas and the ultimate explanation-no, Leibniz!
And natural selection, the anti-chance, non-directonal agency of Nature brings forth caterpillars and babies. No need to bring in an occult force exists!
Also, Hume’s dysteological argument notes other analogies that one could make for apparent design.
Carneades still rules!
http;//carneades.aimoo.com
http://carneadesofga.blogspot.com
I recomend this blog to others at mine as it reflects excellent inquiry and manners!
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January 31, 2012 at 5:06 am
Lord Griggs,
Not sure if you are referring to Marian apparitions, or the so-called Marian appearances that some have comically found on their toast.
I am not Catholic, so I will not comment upon the apparitions, although I have a good friend who is an expert on that subject. I respect him highly, he is a retired Chemist professor from a noted University. He writes about the subject continually and has studied the apparitions for 30 years. He sends me monthly missive updates that keep me abreast of what is going on in that corner of the Christian world. He is convinced the apparitions are real.
The appearances of images on our toast, I will agree with you, are probably only coincidental happenings that occasionally amuse us.
In either case, I state categorically, that neither compares to the butterflies we see. When I see a butterfly, it is absolute proof (to me) that there really is a God. There really is a God, Lord Griggs. It really is true. Randy
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January 31, 2012 at 7:05 am
I would posit that the Cosmological Argument could be considered empirical.
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January 31, 2012 at 7:45 am
Lord Griggs,
What sort of Empiracle evidence would you give to prove to me that you exist? I do not know you. I can not see you. I do not see your effects.
One could argue that your words are little more than apparitions on toast. If not for a couple of things. One is the immaterial way of communicating. You are structuring your sentences according to rules and laws of communication. You are taking thoughts and putting them into words. In doing so you are proving an intelligence via immaterial information. To my mind this is the death knell of naturalism. Information does not come from complex chemical reactions, DNA is information. It took an immaterial thing to organize and arrange the material elements to make living organism. It took intelligence to bring about information. To deny this would be to deny the author of a book just because you have no experience with the author. I have an experience with God.
Also, you appealing to other blogs and advertising for those blogs doesn’t make sense. You are appealing to another immaterial interaction. Again proving that someone beyond yourself has superior knowledge or knowledge and information that you do not or can not or have to time/space to rehash. Meanwhile when I appeal to the holy writings of the Hebrews you will most likely cry foul. Yet, in those writings you read of many things that have been proven to be true and accurate. Those writings have been approved by science and by personal experience. No other book has been as antagonized and still stood the test. Since I do not have direct empirical evidence of you I can stand in doubt of you or I can point to your affects and come to the conclusion of believing you are a being.
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January 31, 2012 at 9:19 am
Scott,
Why is it problematic to postulate an entity for which there is no empirical evidence? It seems to me the only reason to see this as problematic is if one presumes from the start that only material entities exist, and thus all reality is empirically detectable. If that is not true—and there are non-material realities—then we should not be expect to discover them through empirical means. After all, if there was an invisible man in my house, it would be ludicrous to say to me, “There can’t be an invisible man in your house because I’ve looked everywhere and did not see him.” If an invisible man exists, surely he can’t be discovered by our visual senses. He would have to be discovered in other ways.
What I think you are getting at is that we need some kind of testability for claims, otherwise people could make all sorts of bizarre claims about unseen realities and we would have to believe them. I agree that we do need evidence. But it seems that you presume the only kind of evidence that can be offered is empirical evidence, and if you don’t have that, you don’t have any evidence. I disagree with that presupposition. Do you believe in the laws of logic? Do you think that if a = b, and b=c that a = c? Do you believe that something cannot be both A and –A at the same time and in the same way? I’m sure you do. And yet, there is no empirical evidence that such laws exist. We know that such laws exist through logical intuitions, not empirical evidence. There are other kinds of evidence besides empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is good for discovering and learning about material objects, but philosophical evidence is good for discovering and learning about immaterial objects.
How do you know your wife’s smiling at you is not an act? Do you remember The Trueman Show? Her actions led him to believe that she loved him, but she didn’t. She was just acting. Not that I believe that your wife does not love you, but how would you know if she wasn’t just acting because she has some ulterior motive? Indeed, humans do their best acting in the context of dating relationships! You meet a girl and she laughs at all your jokes and tells you how wonderful you are and gives you the eyes…and then you get married. Anybody can smile. Anybody can have sex with you. While those actions are consistent with the actions of someone who may love you, they do not prove that someone loves you. You have to simply trust that her actions truly reflect her genuine feelings and commitment to you.
Jason
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January 31, 2012 at 9:19 am
Griggs,
I addressed your issue in my post. I said there cannot be direct empirical evidence for God, but there can be indirect empirical evidence for His existence if we see effects in the natural world that can only be explained in terms of intelligent or supernatural causation. I think the origin of the universe is one of those indirect evidences.
As for miracles, all that is empirically detectable is the effect: at time t1 person X has a brain tumor and at time t2 person X does not have a brain tumor. What is lacking is any direct empirical evidence for what caused person X’s brain tumor to go away. We may reason that the best explanation is that God intervened in the natural world to cause the brain to be restored to its natural state, but God’s causal activity is not directly observable. The empirical evidence for God’s causal activity would be indirect only.
Your claim that “psychologists find no souls, so that further disconfirms the disembodied notion” is ridiculous. That’s like saying to the person who claims there is an invisible man in his house, “There can’t be because I looked everywhere for him and did not see him.” If he is invisible, of course you are not going to see him with your eyes, so your inability to do so does not count against the possibility of his existence anymore than my inability to weigh a chicken with a yardstick counts against the fact that chickens have a weight. The problem is the tool you are trying to use. It is a basic logical mistake to think that you can have direct empirical evidence for non-empirical entities. So yeah, psychologists are not going to find the soul (I presume you mean neurosurgeons since psychologists only deal with how people think, not what the mind is), but that is completely irrelevant. It reminds me of the story of the first Russians up in space who said God cannot exist because when they got up in space they did not see Him. What a foolish statement to make.
Jason
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January 31, 2012 at 9:20 am
Griggs,
As for your reply to Randy regarding the design argument, just saying people have refuted it doesn’t demonstrate it. Give us their arguments, not just their names. We can discuss and debate arguments, but we cannot debate names of people. Otherwise this will turn into a “my daddy can beat up your daddy” kind of dialogue. I can just as easily say, “William Dembski, Michael Behe, Scott Minnich, and Stephen Meyer have refuted Carneades’ and Lamberth’s and Hume’s arguments.” That won’t get us anywhere.
Jason
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January 31, 2012 at 10:58 am
Griggs, I am curious to know why you chose not to engage the opening statement rather than go after supernaturalists in general which covers a very wide spectrum.
You said: “Rather than letting natural causes- of which empirically we do have knowledge-….”
What in naturalism explains the beginning of the cosmos or life on earth?
You said: “Furthermore, psychologists find no souls, so that further disconfirms the disembodied notion.”
What test did they use to determine this? You readily accept this as true because Psychologists said so and I am curious as to why?
You said: “Carneades defeated all teleological arguments-from reason, to design, probablity and fine-tuning eons ago in dismissing Chrysippus analogy of seeming desing with a builder-begged question.”
Perhaps you can explain what Carneades said that “defested” all teleological arguments.
You said: “Lamberth’s teleonomic/atelic argument notes that as science finds no intent behind Nature, then God would not be God without that intent showing.”
Where is the logic in that statement? Why would God not be God without that intent snowing?
And given the “science” record of history why would “science” be the criteria for determining intent?
In fact, perhaps you should define “science” for us.
Finally, you said: “And natural selection, the anti-chance, non-directonal agency of Nature brings forth caterpillars and babies. No need to bring in an occult force exists!”
But natural selection does not explain where the instructions to form the caterpillars and babies came from. Perhaps you can tell us which scientists have resolved that problem.
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January 31, 2012 at 3:48 pm
@Jason, Travis:
Thank you for the great responses. I didn’t mean to suggest that non-empircally-verifiable entities couldn’t exist – only that the bar is much higher, if you want to convince me they do. This conversation kind of parallels the old enlightenment-era debate between the empiricists and the rationalists; for the former, their conclusions were based in real life but necessarily contingent, while for the latter, their conclusions were iron-clad but connected to the real world abstractly at best.
When we’re discussing the real world, I tend to prioritize the first kind of process. Sure, my wife may be lying to me, but based on the overwhelming amount of evidence at my disposal, I can go about my life feeling reasonably certain she does love me (even if I can never be 100% sure. And even if I can’t come up with a rational explanation!). Based in the real world, but not iron-clad.
In the case of God, on the other hand, I will concede that one could make an eminently logical argument for His existence (and many have). But this would appear to be invoking an entirely abstract God, without any particular connection to the world we interact with every day. There’s nothing at all wrong with this concept, but I don’t think it’s what most people mean when they refer to God. If I am to believe that God listens to our prayers, intervenes in our lives, or any of the other activities commonly attributed to Him, I would expect empirical evidence to be at least theoretically possible.
FWIW, I truly mean no disrespect to your beliefs, but I do greatly enjoy this exchange of ideas and arguments.
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February 1, 2012 at 1:27 am
Scott,
Thanks for the follow-up. You said the bar is higher to prove that non-empirically detectable entities exist. Why? Clearly the means by which we would prove the existence of a non-empirically detectable entity are different than the means by which we would prove the existence of an empirically detectable entity, but why should it be that one requires a greater amount of evidence than the other? It seems to me that both types of entities simply require sufficient evidence.
You distinguished between God and the “real world.” Perhaps if pressed on the point you would speak more precisely, but at face-value this conveys to me that you think of immaterial entities as less real than material entities. Perhaps this is why you think the epistemic bar should be higher for proving the existence of immaterial entities.
As for the existence of God, we both agree that one can provide rational/philosohical arguments for His existence, and that these constitute evidence. But you go on to say, “But this would appear to be invoking an entirely abstract God, without any particular connection to the world we interact with every day. There’s nothing at all wrong with this concept, but I don’t think it’s what most people mean when they refer to God.” I think what you are getting at here is that it is one thing to know that a God exists, and another thing to know that He is involved in the world. The former may be known from rational argumentation, but the latter can only be known by experience. I would largely agree with this point of view. But our experience with God is also only indirect empirical evidence, not direct empirical evidence. We may pray that God does X, and when X happens, we reason that God must have done X because X occurring was so improbable apart from divine intervention. But this is just an event. God is not being observed directly, but indirectly as we reason backwards from effects to the cause that must be sufficient to produce that effect. Perhaps the closest we can get to direct empirical evidence for God’s existence is if we feel the presence of God, or if God appears to us in a theophany, or speaks to us in an audible voice. But that is rare, and because the evidence is limited to the first-person perspective, it can only serve as empirical evidence for the person who has the experience. This is in stark contrast to philosophical arguments for God’s existence. They allow one to come to the conclusion that God exists wholly apart from any experience of God (although the Christian perspective would be that this should be supplemented by a genuine religious experience as well = regeneration).
As for proving something like love, we agree then that there is an element of trust involved based on reasonable evidence. My point was simply that love is not directly empirically detectable or provable. We can only infer the existence of love based on empirical observations, but even then we can never be 100% certain that love is actually present since it cannot be directly observed. And unfortunately there is no chemical test for love either. 🙂
No disrespect is taken. I enjoy discussing ideas. Iron sharpens iron.
Jason
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February 5, 2012 at 10:14 pm
Normal people, also known as atheists, demand real evidence for everything. If an idea has zero evidence they throw it out. Your magical god fairy should be thrown out because it doesn’t have one shred of evidence. Also, it’s a childish idea. A master of the universe with unlimited magical powers? That’s ridiculous.
Elsewhere you wrote “My professional training is in theology”.
You’re a bullshit expert. That’s pathetic.
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February 6, 2012 at 5:50 am
Mr. Ape,
Am I safe to assume that you do not believe in the possibility of a supernatural realm?
If not, since science tells us that the universe and everything therein had a beginning and therefore must necessarily require a cause, may I ask what you believe to be the cause for the origins of the universe and everything therein?
Thank you,
Andy
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February 22, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Great question! Unfortunately you killed it and your argument from the onset. Let me eexplain.
1. What is your definition of God? If its the Xtian, Islamic or Judeo God, then although immaterial, nothing is impossible, correct? As an immaterial being that has a physical effect on the material world, those effects should be measurable, i. e. Spontaneous growing of limbs without scientific explenation. This would be emperical supernatural proof.
2. By you stating that every thing must have a cause, then what caused your God? He does not get an exception to the rule. Especially without evidence like the one in the last point.
3. We are material beings living in a material world (thanks Maddonna!). We can have no concept of anything outside of that experience. The basic stance is that God is unknowable. How can you claim knowledge of something unknowable? It then is not unknowable and hence not your God. The mechanics of the universe cannot point to a God. Why would a omnipotent, immaterial being need to use a limited method of creation based on a material laws? Such a being can create by pure will that has no reason for us. This negates his omnipotence.
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February 22, 2012 at 8:24 pm
Stewpid Monkey, besides special pleading, it is a begged question. That refutes William Sahakian who pleads that by asking that question the we use the fallacy of many questions,but he begs the question! Thus, we can ask it about what designed the Designer and who created Him.
The argument from physical minds notes that we have evidence of embodied minds but none of disembodied ones such that that claim reflects a theological it must be or it may be of guesswork, the art of theology, the subject without a subject. Per Reichenbach’s argument from Existence, Existence is all so that no transcendent God can exist.
Per Angeleis’s the infinite regress argument, cause, event and time presuppose previous ones as most astrophysicists now find true. Thus, no need for the Creator.
And science finds no need for God the Sustainer – the argument from contingency – as quantum tunneling illuminates.
By the way, Darwin could have trusted many monkeys’ minds!
Fellow naturalists, what do you opine about these arguments?
See Peter Adam Angeles’s ” The Problem of God: a Short Introduction to the Philosophy of Religions,” a thorough book, from whence I got his and Reichenbach’s arguments.
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February 22, 2012 at 8:43 pm
Jason, all religious experience is just people’s own minds at work and to aver divine input begs the question. And people’s experiences reflect what their particular religious culture. Also they do very so much and together,despite the late John Hick, they don’t reveal any divine reality!
The naturalist empirical argument is that no empirical basis exists for supernaturalism.
Theophanies reflect divine telepathy, which contradicts physics.
Answered prayers reflect the post hoc fallacy-coincidence, and for the unanswered ones, rationalizations set in.
Yes, we infer love from people’s actions, assuming sincerity. Sometimes, skepticism exists for doubts about love.
Yes,indeed, immateriality’s require evidence, and none exists for souls or disembodied spirits.
Not only can God not be Himself with a disembodied mind, but, for the sake of argument, allow that He has one, He still cannot be Himself per Lamberth’s teleonomic/atelic argument as science indeed illustrates no divine intent behind natural phenomena.
Theistic evolution is thus an oxymoronic obfuscation.
Yes to that iron! Excellent!
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February 22, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Monkey,
I will address your points in reverse order.
You opened up your 3rd point by stating that we are material beings living in a material world and that we can have no concept of anything outside of that experience. If everything is material, then what is a scientific theory? Or, what is your theory about everything being material? Is your theory made up of matter? Or is it immaterial? I guess if you are taking the position that we cannot have any concept of anything outside of the material, you are stating that you have no concept of the immaterial theory which you are positing. But I digress.
In your 3rd point you also stated: “The basic stance is that God is unknowable. How can you claim knowledge of something unknowable? It then is not unknowable and hence not your God.”
Whose basic stance would that be? I will assume, for now, based upon the broader context of your post that you are referring to the Christian, Islamic or Judeo stance. I cannot speak for the Islamic stance, but neither Christianity nor (as far as I know) Judaism take the position that God is “unknowable”. In fact, the very opposite is the case. Paul, In Romans 1:19-20 says:
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
Therefore, your statement about the “stance” of Christianity could not be further from reality.
You are right on one point. “It then is not unknowable and hence not your God.” I couldn’t agree more. Your statement does not in any way describe the Judeo-Christian God.
Also in your 3rd point you stated: “Why would a omnipotent, immaterial being need to use a limited method of creation based on a material laws?”
What exactly do you mean by “limited method of creation”?
In your 2nd point stated: “By you stating that every thing must have a cause, then what caused your God? He does not get an exception to the rule.”
You are leaving out one major factor of my position as well as the Law of Causality. The Law of Causality states that “everything that has a beginning must have a cause.” I stated that “the universe and everything therein had a beginning and therefore must necessarily require a cause” and I was very careful to word my position in such a manner. Therefore, you either completely misunderstand the Law of Causality, or are intentionally misrepresenting it. God, by definition, does not have a beginning. He exists outside of the realm of time. He does therefore not require a cause. And no, that is not just a cop out. Let me explain.
Atheists, prior to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, held the belief that the universe was eternal, and thus did not need a cause. Einstein kinda messed that up. A fact that he found “irritating.” Scientist were comfortable with a self-existant universe. Arthur Eddington, who later further confirmed Einstein’s Relativity said, “Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature is repugnant to me. . . . I should like to find a genuine loophole.”
So, the self-existance of the universe is…well, was…okay for atheists, but the self-existance of God is not? In other news, two and two make five.
Those are the only two possibilities, buy the way. Either the universe is eternal and therefore self-existant, or God is eternal and therefore self-existant. If there was ever nothing, there would necessarily always be nothing. Because there is something, there must have necessarily always have been something. The evidence shows us that the universe is NOT eternal leaving us with only one option — something outside of the universe must be eternal. That something is the Uncaused Cause, or the Creator.
It is not logical to argue that the universe was created by God, but God was in turn created by God to the second power, who was in turn created by God to the third power, and so on. Aristotle posited that there must be a reality that causes but is itself uncaused (or, a being that moves but is itself unmoved). If there is an infinite regression of causes, then by definition the whole process could never begin.
Also in your 2nd point you mentioned the lack of evidence. To that I say, that is precisely what the discussion is all about. If there is something (i.e. the natural realm), there must necessarily be an Uncaused Cause of that something.
To answer your initial question (and point), I define God as, a self-existant, spaceless, timeless, immaterial, omnipotent, intelligent, personal, and moral being.
As far as your comment about spontaneous growth of limbs an emperical supernatural proof. If you really want me to deconstruct that non sequitor, I will. But as I stated, this very conversation about spontaneous growth of the universe is much more impressive than the spontaneous growth of limbs and is all the evidence that one really should need.
So, now that I answered your questions, please feel free to address my initial question. I’ll add to it this: If there is no God, why is there something rather than nothing? Or, in the words of the great prophetess Julie Andrews, “Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could!”
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August 3, 2012 at 11:47 pm
Ah, the eternal waltz of those who believe and those who don’t, to search for answers is a noble cause, but also fruitless! For those who believe shall believe, and those who don’t simply won’t. The fact is, the lack of evidence cannot be used as evidence, and without the absolute truths demanded by empiricists, they will never believe until for some reason they find fault in their own logical dogma. even though truths in and of themselves are really only a probability of an outcome based on an impossibly large number of variables that we assume to be constant even thought we still don’t and possibly never will understand the nature of all of the forces at work in a given scenario. Logic? Logic is laughable, a largely subjective mental structure that is built and bent around the delusions we live with in our everyday lives, you say i am delusional for believing in god? i say you are delusional for believing in mankind, knowing full well the atrocities we have committed against out own kind. the only unifying logic we really have is mathematics, other than that, to believe in one’s own logic is to believe in one’s own delusions. I personally believe in human fallibility, for if you truly believe we just randomly came from monkeys, then you are putting your faith in nothing more than a race of smarter than average primates.
I write all this not to test my intellect against others of my species, i do so with a message. people will believe what they want to believe regardless of the information they are given, two equally intelligent individuals could debate forever with counter arguments until the very day they die and that will be all they accomplished here on earth. Please don’t do that, even if you don’t believe in the bible, the message in it is clear and universal, be a good person, love thy neighbor and don’t kill anyone, easy enough? i think so. so instead of arguing over semantics for the purpose of stroking your intellectual ego’s go volunteer in a soup kitchen or go feed some hungry people, i guarantee you you will find much more fulfillment in that then on some internet message board debating the existence of god. and hey, think about it this way, if the atheists are right and we rot in the ground after we die, it’s not like anyone is going to get to rub anyone else’s face in it; but if we die and there is a god up above, i’m sure he would be very happy to know you helped some people here on earth who were less fortunate than yourself.
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August 3, 2012 at 11:56 pm
Oh and also i would just like to add that being a sentient being carries the burden of constantly living inside your own delusions, regardless of what that may entail. delusions are a part of being an intelligent thinking individual, and even empiricists suffer from the same delusional mindset we all do, it’s a trait that’s inherent to being human.
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February 5, 2013 at 12:24 pm
An atheist can just as well ask a theist: “What evidence would I need to convince you that there is no God? If they say “nothing”, then they are asking for the impossible when they ask for evidence for the nonexistence of God.
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February 5, 2013 at 12:41 pm
That’s true Patrick. I would agree. That would be intellectually dishonest. There should be at least one possible defeater of their belief. But all this shows is that both of us need to have evidence for our positions, and both of us have to be willing to allow evidence to count against our positions.
Jason
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September 19, 2014 at 2:33 pm
I’m in a philosophy class with a very an avowed atheist professor. Even he points out the flaw in such an an argument that demands empirical evidence for something which is not empirical in nature. He points to simple mathematics, emotions, thoughts, and dreams. They.. like God are not tangible things, but require personal experience. Try explaining with empirical evidence the existence of any and you run into the same paradoxes which theists into. For myself, I see the what the bible has said about the world and what is to be expected when we examine the world for ourselves. The Big Bang for instance is what one would expect when god said let there be light and he saw that it was good. When he created the plants and the animals, the Cambrian explosion is what one would expect to find. But even more telling, when one studies the conversation between God and Job, a book of the bible which has been determined to be the oldest book roughly dating to 2500 b.c. The circle of the earth, the spreading of the stars, the valleys and springs of the deep are all things which an ancient goat herder couldn’t have possibly known without divine knowledge or modern advances in science. I think we all know no such advances were present at that time, which leaves only one option.
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December 20, 2018 at 7:33 pm
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December 20, 2018 at 7:52 pm
Nafees:
Cricket:
A small leaping insect noted for the chirping sound made by the males rubbing part of the wings together.
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December 20, 2018 at 8:55 pm
mvee124:
“….emotions, thoughts, and dreams. They.. like God are not tangible things, but require personal experience. Try explaining with empirical evidence the existence of any and you run into the same paradoxes which theists into.”
NO, you DO NOT “…run into the same paradoxes which theists do…” because these are common experiences to all. We know that empirical evidence is based on testing or experience. It is also based on scientific research and since empirical evidence requires solid proof or facts to support it, we have exactly that because everybody experiences emotions, thoughts and dreams, it is not a searchable anomaly that requires an experimental test like; say, an alien abduction.
Your argument then is less than an adequate as a comparison because the truth is that everybody experiences similar emotions, thoughts and dreams which is why I ask and answer:
What is an axiom?
A self-evident and necessary truth, or a proposition whose truth is so evident at first sight that no reasoning or demonstration can make it plainer.
In other words: If there was a God one would never have to say, ‘If there was a God’, again; it would be as self evident as emotions, thoughts and dreams and unless you claim that emotions, thoughts and dreams are evidence of God, you lose the argument; and,
If you claim that emotions, thoughts and dreams are evidence of God, you will face questions about why emotions, thoughts and dreams are evidence of God any more than sensory perceptions of touch, sound, sight, smell, taste and sex are evidence of God.
When he created the plants and the animals, the Cambrian explosion is what one would expect to find. WHY would anybody expect that pre Cambrian
And finally, any ancient goat herder would know by observation that when water flows along the ground, it creates wiggly, jiggly paths (least resistance) in the dust and ground sands and a normal common sense understanding would suggest that wiggly, jiggly water streams over a period of time longer than a mere rainstorm would create a wiggly, jiggly deeper and wider valley of river beds snaking its way through the flat lands.
I submit that the goat herder analogy is hardly evidence of divine knowledge; even advances in science.
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