Why it is silly to look for evidence of God

Sorry. Starving children are only people to God. They will rejoin all in death, why risk discovery to feed them, when Americans won't even do it? God can not be known, its part of the plan.

 

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Why does the other character ask for proof of the banana?

I'm not suggesting that it shouldn't. I'd just like to hear your reasoning as to why it is asking for proof.

 

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Folks, it really doesn't matter whether someone found "god" or not. It's all part of nature. There are physical laws, cause and effect and that's it. No need to worry more. God is present in our brain which is the stimulus of all actions and perceptions.

 

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Hey, nice question. Unconventional and out of the box - cool.

Excuse my enthusiam. So here we go -

A person has made a truth claim - its a positive claim and its relevant [for eating, making people fall, etc], therefore the personal claim of this person now becomes an important issue for the other guy - he needs to react or decide something about it - request a share, tell him that it may be harbouring a new vector of some disease, etc - hence he needs to confirm the central point of this discourse - that the person has a banana - and the greater the potential consequence, the higher the need for confirmation, hence he asks for proof. The person present him with a banana and he recognises it as such, and by the rational and common sense faith that things observed in a normal waking state many times is likely to be a real, actual thing existing objectively of the participants involved; he adds the banana possessed by the person to his ontology. This process, essential if the stakes are high enough and useful at all times, breaks down unless the claim is confirmed, thereby terminating the rationality of decisions thereafter. With a banana, this all isnt that important, of course. But when applied to claims about life, death, the cosmos, our place in the universe and powerful hypothetical beings supposed to influence, if not control, all of it - it becomes a very important, almost indespensible step in the process of gathering knowledge, understand things and updating our ontologies.

Hence the importance bestowed upon, and demand of, Proof.

 

:runaway:


jan.

 

Indeed, this is related to one of the standard arguments for agnosticism:


Many describe themselves as agnostics because they believe that certain knowledge is impossible in religious matters. Whatever evidence there might be for or against the existence of God, both God’s existence and God’s non-existence remain conceivable. If we form a belief on uncertain evidence then we might turn out to be wrong. It is therefore better for us to withhold our judgement, to remain agnostic.

This argument is not especially persuasive. Though it is plausible to think that we cannot ever attain certainty as to whether or not God exists, this is true of all matters; nothing can be proved beyond all doubt. Descartes‘ argument from error establishes this: I have made errors of reasoning in the past, even concerning simple matters, and so can on no occasion be certain that I am not in error again. In spite of this unavoidable uncertainty, we nevertheless form beliefs. Why should we not do the same in matters of religion?

A more subtle version of the argument from uncertainty has an answer to this question: because religion is so important. Religion matters, and that is why we ought to be particularly careful in forming our religious beliefs.

The more important it is to be right about a matter, the more cautious we should be in forming our beliefs. If a matter is of great importance, as religion is, then our evidential standards concerning it should be set high, we should demand strong evidence before settling on what we believe.

In fact, religion is of unquantifiable importance - there is nothing more important than being right about the question of God’s existence - and we should therefore set our evidential standards infinitely high.

If this is correct, then the standard of evidence required for justified religious belief is so high that it can never be satisfied; we can never have enough evidence to form beliefs about such questions as whether God exists. In this way, the importance of religion works to suggest that we can never have religious knowledge, that we ought to remain agnostic.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/arguments-for-agnosticism/the-argument-from-uncertainty/


This is a good topic. I suggest you start a thread on it.

 

Do say something more about your reaction, no need to run away.

 

May I know the reason for your totally unexcepted reaction?

 

Thats a bit too convinent, isnt that, especially for you, more than for god? God cannot be known, but you can still make the claim that allowing children to starve [even to death] is part of the plan, the plan of something unknowable - how do you wrap your mind around that, K91?

 

I just want to give you my own perspective on certainty before we start this discussion, so that we may know the positions we take in this debate/discussion. I would like to know if you personally hold the view you presented above or were they just a presentation of ideas relevant to my question? I hold this view on uncertainty, which I will flesh out more in subsequent posts -

"Strong and weak atheism make a clear distinction between rejecting a belief in god [practical behaviour as if god doesnt exist, even though he just might - non-acceptance of the claim of god's existence] and asserting the belief that god doesn't exist [an ideological claim that claims the god is knowable and that he doesnt exist]. I want to try and reconcile the two and say that the difference is a matter of probability - to the knowability of god and his existence. High knowability [gnostism] gives rise to strong a/theist while the opposite leads to weak a/theist. Belief in belief is another plane independent of these two.

God, if omnipotent, is under no obligation to do anything his omnipotence makes him capable of doing. So omnipotence couldn't rule out agnositism, and the choice in belief can be therefore independant of the "contradiction" implied against agnosticism - that if god exists and is omnipotent, he can reveal himself to us and thereby acertain his existence; as nothing like this has happened, we reject the claim of his existence till we have enough proof otherwise rather than withhold our judgement. So, this argument against Agnosticism is not valid. But, on the other hand, this doen't leave the situation 50-50. The point that if god is omnipotent he should make himself observable is not an absolute measure of god's presence, but its a good probabilistic weight against the claim of theism. Theists sometimes miss out that the stand of atheism is not a belief claim or a denial of god because its a probablity claim.

No sensible atheist would say that god doesn't exist for sure, because the prime reason for athiesm as well as the main alternative to theism is science [though the two could coexist and do so for about 7-9% of the scientific elite]. One could therefore only make a claim of probability [as required by scientism], like the existence of god being as likely as...say....spagetti monster, pink unicorn, celestial teapot, bigfoot, santa, etc. but a claim of absolute atheism [strong atheism] is a faith claim, its a claim similiar to saying you know exactly how many heads or tails will come up in 10K flips. Weak atheism is akin to saying that the exact number is unknowable [until flipped] and till then based on weighting of the coin and motion of the hand, etc, a probability of around 45-55% can be ascertained.

The claim to existence of god is similiar, but the coin is weighted - by observations, philosophy and the sciences. The yes side is losing the weight and the no side is being reinforced by science and philosophy, thereby shifting the probability, [IMPO] to somewhere around 85-95%. Like Zeno's paradox, we would never call it an even 100, it will always be 99.something, like it is today for the animal spirit that warns warblers when a cat approaches [fictitious example animism in tribal people]. Which is where the scientific methods of modelling and theorising come in, and the naturalist model is maintained as the only one, given its theories are proven beyond reasonable doubt to be a fitting and parsimonious explaination - like coincidence, placebo, baises, etc. And that is how [IMO] atheists resolve their rejection of the belief in God, something they cannot be certain about, only so much sure."

This is about a month old, modified from this thread - http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=111921

So please excuse my somewhat strong and/or militant ideas - more obvious the closer you get to my joining date to this site, and to my deconversion to atheism - I am just now finally putting back together the defragged pieces of my mentality. Like I said, I will refine it and flesh it out better if you wish, but this represents the basic gist of my ideas of uncertainty.

 

All atheists (or at least all good atheists, loathe as I am to use the language of the faithful; sadly, it's all we've got) are agnostics on the God question. We can't know, don't claim to know, and won't say for certain that we do know.

This refers to, of course, the idea of an ultimate creator, a prime mover. We can say that it seems unlikely because the model works without the presence of a creator, but on this we ultimately have no other position to take than that of the agnostic.

We are atheists as it pertains to the gods of human invention, however, and we are so because of the evidence against the validity of those texts. If you are educated on this matter, there is no logical way to reach any other conclusion. In this context, agnosticism is the result of fear or ignorance. And please do not discount fear as a motivator; I have known plenty of people who were not believers but held a Pascalian fear of going all the way to atheism, as they figured "If I'm wrong, I'm burned."

(Although even this position is based on ignorance, because, at least in the case of Christianity, anything short of complete capitulation is a guaranteed ticket to hell)

So it comes to what exactly the question is. In practical terms, we call ourselves theists or agnostics or atheists in regards to the question of the Abrahamic "God."

 

No, I just remembered that standard argument for agnosticism when I read your post.

Now start the thread, and we'll see whether a passive approach to uncertainty is the best way to go.

 

You can question and dismiss those texts all you want, but you cannot dimiss what they point at or may be pointing at.

 

Wynn, you start the thread, I really dont know what the OP would be - I have already made the "Certainty in Atheism" threadon this topic.

 

I just thought the banana piece was lunacy, and so clicked on a smiley
that I thought portrayed it.


jan.

 

Why do you think it's lunacy?

 

JD,

Is there a distinction between the ''Abrahamic God'', and, ''God''?
If so, what is it?

jan.

 

It stemmed from the originial image put forward.
Then the effort put into something so silly, wasn't surprising, but I
thought I would respond to it anyways.

jan.

 

I do think the image and the comment "Prove it!" is worth looking into. I think it points toward a fundamental principle of how some people tend to approach interactions with others.
Namely, requesting proof from others suggests a passive, reactive, and essentially insecure approach to life as such.

 

I see you're taking it quite seriously, and that's fair enough.

I on the otherhand, cannot see any serious intent in his defence, or arguments.

At first I thought they may be real inquiry, but have since understood, that he is looking for a smoking gun, and that is the extent of his contribution, despite attempts to assure us that he is not.

I see the whole atheist movement as weak, by themselves, but appear to be strong when upheld by more powerful forces who seek to gain control over the masses. I am becoming more convinced that this overall force is satanic, and irreligious.

I may one day create a thread on this subject, especially as the subject of ''satanism'', and the ''satanic'', is very sparse around these here parts.

I wonder why


jan.

jan.