Post Any Evidence For God Here

[jay_a2j]

[Neoteny]

Now my coffee is ruined...

[Neoteny]

that's the exact image i came here to post neoteny

::brohugs::

the existence of evil is completely irreconcilable with a god that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. either he doesn't know enough information to stop evil, is not powerful enough to stop evil, or just doesn't give a shit. and if any of those propositions is true, the christian god is therefore a fiction.

i'm sure none of you are very keen on becoming brahmins, so having disproved your own personal skyman, i feel i've done enough

::returns brohug::

[Phatscotty]

I am looking for evidence of God. If any of you have any...please post it here.

You can't prove it, you can't disprove it. You are asking all the wrong questions in all the wrong places (CC?).

All you naysayers...they said the same thing about the atom.

Does my statement that we cant know either way makes me a naysayer?

[LYR]

Why does this seem like the same people arguing the same exact debate for the xth time?

[Neoteny]

Why does this seem like the same people arguing the same exact debate for the xth time?

Because it's fun.

[john9blue]

It is fun.

Also greek, I think God might be lenient on atheists who are good people anyway.

Will respond to MDF soon, but I require sustenance.

[AAFitz]

I am looking for evidence of God. If any of you have any...please post it here.

God is ultimately a matter of belief.

But then, you cannot prove there is NO God, either.

The proof for either comes within.

Sure you can. You just cant prove it to anyone else. It will also be the last thing you ever do.

True.. lol.

But seriously, when I say "you cannot prove it", I mean only that you cannot prove it to other people, particularly in a 'scientific" sense (the sense that all other possibilities are eliminated for a particular set of parameters or circumstance). I feel I have seen proof of God in my own life, or I would not be believing.

Well that is the scary part of believing. Seeing is believing, but often it is believing the wrong thing. People throughout history have believed things that were untrue. Many believe to their core that they were abducted by aliens. Many believe they have seen them. Many believe that the earth is maybe 6000-10000 years old.

What I believe, is that the human mind is very easily tricked into believing in things. It is a remarkable organ, and capable of a great depth of knowledge, but it also longs for an easy set of rules to "believe in" It simply doesnt care if some of those rules are correct, it simply does not have the energy or the ability to carry on basic functions which keeps it alive, while trying to decide its ultimate origin. Certainly, it can... but its a hell of a lot easier to just make a decision....and...once that decision is made, the brain is all too helpful in backing it up with as much evidence as you could possibly ever need. It is brilliant at seeing patterns and meanings in nearly anything. It just wants to go about its business, and do its thing, and have as many things resolved as possible.

For this reason, beliefs cannot be fully trusted. Certainly some have to be, and certainly instinct must be at times, but unfortunately, these are still often wrong. The problem is, after believing in something for a very long time, the brain is not very receptive to the idea that that belief was wrong. Its subconscious is afraid of finding out its wrong. It knows it is dangerous to stop believing in everything once believed. It does not want change, unless things are going poorly. It will fight it as hard as it can. Its a brilliant little organ, but without a doubt it sometimes cares more about itself, than it does the person who owns it.

What is disturbing about a belief in God, is that, it is typically something handed down from one person to another. Populations tend to believe the same thing, but only because they are surrounded by others that believe the same. In your case, you were told about the religion and basic generalizations about what you believe. You no doubt adapted them, and truly believe your version is correct, but when looking at all people and all beliefs, it is clear there is absolutely no reason to believe one over the other, because they all have the same faulty origins....and such origins have been proven to make people believe in things that simply are not true.

So, what we can prove is that beliefs can be wrong. People can make up religions. People can live their entire lives believing things that have been scientifically proven not to be true. Therefore, belief really is more of a choice, than it is a belief. Though some who never once question it, may truly just believe, and never once considered the possibility that they might be wrong.

This is a very attractive way to live. You quite simply cannot go wrong, because if you are wrong, you will never even have to find out. There is no penalty for not believing, assuming youre not whipping yourself 40 times a day, or punishing yourself to the point where you are not happy. So, not only can beliefs not be trusted...there is a motive behind believing, and when there is motive, trust becomes even more of an issue.

In any case, people will believe what they choose to believe. The best part about a forum like this, is that no one has to actually worry about changing another's belief, because mostly people are just posting their ideas, and not really looking for actual answers of any kind. For to mess around with another's beliefs is serious business, and not many are arrogant enough to wade into those waters with strangers too lightly. Others of course, jump in daily.

I think the important thing for all who believe, is to not get hung up on the details of any particular religion, because, it is certainly logical that details cant possibly be the most important thing, or any God worthy of the title, would have made it much more clear that that was the case. Or, you believe you are the only one correct, and that all others must be wrong, but that in its own way is a sin in and of itself, and many who preach their religion are very guilty of that sin of vanity, and arrogance, and often negligence.

Usually a point presents itself by the end of these ramblings..but...well.... not this time.

[Frigidus]

I guess we will all find out when we die eh?

It will kinda suck for alot of us if God is real...


anyways one thing that i have always wondered about.

People sy how awesome and amazing and what a wonderful teacher Jesus was and how moral and good and man he was....Well if he WASNT Gods son then in reality all he was was the biggest liar ever to walk the planet. The was nothing good or moral about him because he just deceived everyone.

Either that or he was crazy. Or the guys who wrote/edited the New Testament lied.

[PLAYER57832]

A Catholic on evolution if anyone cares:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05654a.htm

EDIT - another one - http://www.nd.edu/~lumen/2005_08/Darwin ... cism.shtml

Roman Catholics and Mainline Protestant churches all agree on Evolution and God.

[PLAYER57832]

I am looking for evidence of God. If any of you have any...please post it here.

God is ultimately a matter of belief.

But then, you cannot prove there is NO God, either.

The proof for either comes within.

Sure you can. You just cant prove it to anyone else. It will also be the last thing you ever do.

True.. lol.

But seriously, when I say "you cannot prove it", I mean only that you cannot prove it to other people, particularly in a 'scientific" sense (the sense that all other possibilities are eliminated for a particular set of parameters or circumstance). I feel I have seen proof of God in my own life, or I would not be believing.

Well that is the scary part of believing. Seeing is believing, but often it is believing the wrong thing. People throughout history have believed things that were untrue. Many believe to their core that they were abducted by aliens. Many believe they have seen them. Many believe that the earth is maybe 6000-10000 years old.

What I believe, is that the human mind is very easily tricked into believing in things. It is a remarkable organ, and capable of a great depth of knowledge, but it also longs for an easy set of rules to "believe in" It simply doesnt care if some of those rules are correct, it simply does not have the energy or the ability to carry on basic functions which keeps it alive, while trying to decide its ultimate origin. Certainly, it can... but its a hell of a lot easier to just make a decision....and...once that decision is made, the brain is all too helpful in backing it up with as much evidence as you could possibly ever need. It is brilliant at seeing patterns and meanings in nearly anything. It just wants to go about its business, and do its thing, and have as many things resolved as possible.

For this reason, beliefs cannot be fully trusted. Certainly some have to be, and certainly instinct must be at times, but unfortunately, these are still often wrong. The problem is, after believing in something for a very long time, the brain is not very receptive to the idea that that belief was wrong. Its subconscious is afraid of finding out its wrong. It knows it is dangerous to stop believing in everything once believed. It does not want change, unless things are going poorly. It will fight it as hard as it can. Its a brilliant little organ, but without a doubt it sometimes cares more about itself, than it does the person who owns it.

What is disturbing about a belief in God, is that, it is typically something handed down from one person to another. Populations tend to believe the same thing, but only because they are surrounded by others that believe the same. In your case, you were told about the religion and basic generalizations about what you believe. You no doubt adapted them, and truly believe your version is correct, but when looking at all people and all beliefs, it is clear there is absolutely no reason to believe one over the other, because they all have the same faulty origins....and such origins have been proven to make people believe in things that simply are not true.

So, what we can prove is that beliefs can be wrong. People can make up religions. People can live their entire lives believing things that have been scientifically proven not to be true. Therefore, belief really is more of a choice, than it is a belief. Though some who never once question it, may truly just believe, and never once considered the possibility that they might be wrong.

This is a very attractive way to live. You quite simply cannot go wrong, because if you are wrong, you will never even have to find out. There is no penalty for not believing, assuming youre not whipping yourself 40 times a day, or punishing yourself to the point where you are not happy. So, not only can beliefs not be trusted...there is a motive behind believing, and when there is motive, trust becomes even more of an issue.

In any case, people will believe what they choose to believe. The best part about a forum like this, is that no one has to actually worry about changing another's belief, because mostly people are just posting their ideas, and not really looking for actual answers of any kind. For to mess around with another's beliefs is serious business, and not many are arrogant enough to wade into those waters with strangers too lightly. Others of course, jump in daily.

I think the important thing for all who believe, is to not get hung up on the details of any particular religion, because, it is certainly logical that details cant possibly be the most important thing, or any God worthy of the title, would have made it much more clear that that was the case. Or, you believe you are the only one correct, and that all others must be wrong, but that in its own way is a sin in and of itself, and many who preach their religion are very guilty of that sin of vanity, and arrogance, and often negligence.

Usually a point presents itself by the end of these ramblings..but...well.... not this time.

It is true that the human mind can be somewhat readily decieved and by many, many things. However, when you talk of Christianity, there is a "something" there that I do believe supercedes all the condemnation in ways other religions do not. (would require a lot more in depth discussion than I am up for right now and probably that I am up for at all on the internet).

Still, nothing is absolutely certain, which is why there will almost certainly always be both believers and doubters. The real key is to have a fundamental respect for each other's right to believe as they do (disbelieve is itself a belief in this context). Then we can at least live together, talk about stuff and perhaps get things done instead of fighting over who is right and who is wrong.

[CreepersWiener]

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the bravest people in the world are atheists. If they are right, they're just dead. If they are wrong, they're in bad shape.

I'm not scurred.

We're all on our moral high horse, and we feel that there is enough to back us up to the point that even if there were a god, he'd probably agree with us (of course, nobody thinks god disagrees with them), and, if nothing else, we were acting on the best information available to us, and did so in an ethical and moral manner, which is all we really care about. I suppose he could technically take my memory away from me (being all-powerful and all), but while I'm burning in the depths of hell, I'll get solace from that fact.

And if we're right, my only fear is not being able to rub it in everyone's face. Man that sucks.

I must applaud this most intelligent and beautifully articulate response. Thank you, Neoteny...you are the cat's pajamas!

[CreepersWiener]

Why does this seem like the same people arguing the same exact debate for the xth time?

Because it's fun.

Hey! LOOK! A new debater!

[john9blue]

It's 306 words, without the first and the last line that are obviously not part of the main text. The quantity is there, but the quality is so lacking that I hardly know where to begin.

I'll make a list of the main points and then go into the details as necessary.

Firstly, you do not understand the meaning of "possible", particularly "logically possible". A concept is logically possible if it contains no internal contradictions. Just for the sake of completeness: The other important category is "naturally possible", a concept is naturally possible if it does not contradict the natural laws of our world.

Ok, but anything naturally possible is also logically possible, right? IDK where you're going here but I'll wait...

Secondly, you claim that natural selection is a process with a direction, that it will lead to a particular goal. This is bullshit of the highest degree, with one ounce of this dung you could fertilize enough land to bring an end to starvation all over the world.

So you're saying natural selection is random? It's not. It tends to select for the fittest. Otherwise it would be pointless. There is a direction.

Thirdly, you fail to understand that even if it is in any way possible to apply natural selection to things like religion, you cannot deduce that religion must be good for society in order to perpetuate itself.

Yeah I can't. I'm not trying to deduce though, it's inductive. If a religion shows itself to be good for many societies in the past, it will likely (not certainly) be good for society in the future.

Fourthly, you seem to think that natural selection is a philosophical or moral position, in this regard you're simply wrong. Natural selection is a concept that originated in biology strictly to explain biological phenomena through a natural process, while it may be possible to describe phenomena outside of biology with this process, it has no moral, ethical or philosophical contents whatsoever.

Yeah, I'm not trying to discover ultimate truth/morality using natural selection, just explaining how our current system of morals came to be. Societies with morals that didn't work died, ones with working morals survived, and passed on their system of morality. That's why natural selection applies, and how it helps determine the morals that are best for society as a whole.

1. Possibility
"A world better than the one in which we live." I see no contradictions in such a sentence but, admittedly, it lacks contents and the question "Better how?" is reasonable to ask, so let's say "a world in which noone starves". Arguably starvation is a bad thing and a world in which noone starves would be better than the current world in which some people starve. I can easily imagine a world in which noone starves that is otherwise identical to ours in all relevant aspects. I see no contradictions in the term "a world with no starvation". Unless you can show me how the term itself if meaningless we must conclude that such a world is logically possible.
If a better world is logically possible, Leibniz and Pangloss can suck my dick.

Ultimately it is very hard to tell whether starvation is good or bad. What if I told you that the smarter someone is, the less likely they will starve, so starvation tends to kill off less intelligent people, making our species smarter, and leading to more progress and prosperity for thousands of generations into the future? It's how the rest of the animals on Earth work. That's why I bring up natural selection so much, because it accounts for this, and helps explain why some suffering might ultimately be good.

2. The non-directedness of natural selection
Natural selection posits that the fittest individuals of a given population are more likely to pass on their traits to a larger number of offspring than the average. "Fittest" can be defined as "best adapted to the given environment". This means, however, that "fitness" is not something absolute but relative to an overall situation, if the environment changes, the traits that used to be contributive to fitness may turn out to be a disadvantage.
Traits that are advantageous may be linked to other traits that are disadvantageous and will appear together in a significant amount of individuals, thus leading to no overall increase in fitness. E.g. Vipera berus, the dark individual tend to be somewhat larger and stronger and they need less time to get warm in the sun, however, predators that prey on them also have an easier time spotting them.

Nowhere in the definition is there any such thing as a "direction" of natural selection, it is a mindless process that will work in any way depending on any number of details.

See above, natural selection will sometimes work for the worse, but those bad traits will be "deselected" in time. I'm not talking about individual cases or species, I'm talking over long, long periods of time. NS will always do exactly what it needs to do to ensure that species (or anything) survive by becoming better. To go back to the Catholic Church example, if they still required masses in Latin and persecuted all nonbelievers or anyone who broke a single commandment, you can bet they wouldn't be where they are today. They adapted to the times and are doing fine.

NS is a mindless process, but so is gravity, and that is very predictable and definitely has a direction. They are both facts of nature.

3. Natural selection, memes and benefit to other entities
Applying the same reasoning as you did, virtually all viruses ought to be beneficial for us since those that somehow make us (their carriers) better should have an edge over those that make us sick. I think empirical evidence will disagree with this. Likewise, if you want to apply natural selection to cultural memes like religion, you need to ask yourself "How do tubgirl and meatspin benefit society?", or maybe lolcats if you want a more innocent example. Yes, from the standpoint of natural selection there's no difference between religions and pictures of cats with captions.

I'm not sure what you mean with the viruses, and what empirical evidence you're talking about, but I'll take your word for it. TG/MS/LC are hilarious/shocking and provide entertainment, and if they didn't then they would hardly be known. Who says they don't benefit society when people are entertained by them?

This is because your basic understanding of natural selection is flawed, you argue that religion (especially Christianity) must be beneficial to society because it has been around and dominant for so long. But then you're putting the cart before the horse because what you're really doing is applying natural selection to societies and concluding that their religions play a role in their dominance

I don't say it MUST be beneficial, I say it probably is beneficial, because if it wasn't, then how do you explain its predominance in many of the world's most developed countries for hundreds/thousands of years?

If you apply natural selection to memes, the memes need only be beneficial to themselves in order to be perpetuated, they may be beneficial to society, but they may equally be detrimental, there is no way to tell since society is the environment in which they thrive or perish.

But if they were detrimental to society, the society would tend to die off, taking the meme with it.

On the other hand, if you apply natural selection to societies religion becomes merely one factor among thousands, under those circumstances it is simply foolish to conclude that religion must be the one contributing factor to a society's dominance.

Yeah I'm not giving religion ALL the credit. But you can't deny that it's a huge social force and has a large impact on how a society operates. You could say the same about systems of government for that matter- the bad ones will die off. Those two definitely deserve a lot of the credit for determining how well a society does.

4. The lack of moral, ethical and philosophical contents in the process of natural selection
Let's go back to my earlier definition of natural selection. "Natural selection posits that the fittest individuals of a given population are more likely to pass on their traits to a larger number of offspring than the average. "Fittest" can be defined as "best adapted to the given environment"."

Yeah. Sometimes I'll stretch the principle beyond biology because I think it's a universal principle, but w/e.

Please demonstrate where in this definition there is anything regarding morality, because I don't see it. I don't even see why you could possibly think there is. While you're at it, please explain where you got the harebrained idea that killing people is beneficial towards spreading ones genes around.

Well like I was saying, I think it applies to things other than biology as well.

Actually I looked up the exact definition of survival of the fittest and found out about this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer

who as you can see extended the concept to societies and culture as a whole (I knew I couldn't have been the first lol). Check this out:

Spencer's interest in psychology derived from a more fundamental concern which was to establish the universality of natural law. In common with others of his generation, including the members of Chapman's salon, he was possessed with the idea of demonstrating that it was possible to show that everything in the universe—including human culture, language, and morality—could be explained by laws of universal validity. This was in contrast to the views of many theologians of the time who insisted that some parts of creation, in particular the human soul, were beyond the realm of scientific investigation. Comte's Systeme de Philosophie Positive had been written with the ambition of demonstrating the universality of natural law, and Spencer was to follow Comte in the scale of his ambition. However, Spencer differed from Comte in believing it was possible to discover a single law of universal application which he identified with progressive development and was to call the principle of evolution.

In 1858 Spencer produced an outline of what was to become the System of Synthetic Philosophy. This immense undertaking, which has few parallels in the English language, aimed to demonstrate that the principle of evolution applied in biology, psychology, sociology (Spencer appropriated Comte's term for the new discipline) and morality. Spencer envisaged that this work of ten volumes would take twenty years to complete; in the end it took him twice as long and consumed almost all the rest of his long life.

So anyway, the morals that are better for society will tend to last longer than those that don't. Simple enough. That's how we developed our international sort of moral code in recent years (e.g. just war theory, diplomacy, Geneva Convention, etc.), because it promotes our survival, and we aren't dumb enough to blow each other to smithereens.

[Neoteny]

Why does this seem like the same people arguing the same exact debate for the xth time?

Because it's fun.

Hey! LOOK! A new debater!

I'm not sure if I'm missing a joke, but I think I'm an old master debater.

[john9blue]

Neo's an old timer.

[Neoteny]

Classic Neo insolence from back when I tried to be nice and debate normally.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29531&p=884495

Good stuff from Guiscard and Suggs too.

I miss those guys.

My original posting of the pic.

[Neoteny]

Oh gawd... now I'm rereading the whole thread...

[GabonX]

Wait, which one is God?

[Neoteny]

The one on the left, obv.

[Imaweasel]

The picture of Israel that some1 posted is a powerful arguement in Gods favour.

There is yet to be an explination for the the survival and creation of the state of Israel

[GabonX]

The one on the left, obv.

Man..

You are so racist

[Imaweasel]

Wait, which one is God?

This picture proves nothing in my opinion. Because there is suffering on the earth does not disprove God. The bible (where we get the christian god from) says that there will be suffering and death because of evil choices by humans so all that picture does is prove God was right???

This is after all the point of having a heaven is it not. The Idea of a better place. And where does that Idea come from? Where does the Idea of "better" come from from. "Better" than what?

[GabonX]

You totally misunderstood man.

That's a picture of God..

..and he's hungry.

[Phatscotty]

Wait, which one is God?

This picture proves nothing in my opinion. Because there is suffering on the earth does not disprove God. The bible (where we get the christian god from) says that there will be suffering and death because of evil choices by humans so all that picture does is prove God was right???

This is after all the point of having a heaven is it not. The Idea of a better place. And where does that Idea come from? Where does the Idea of "better" come from from. "Better" than what?

I guess some very young innocent children deserve to be eaten alive.