Post Any Evidence For God Here

[Phatscotty]

If good and evil exist, then God exists

[john9blue]

what's the modern alternative to religion?

rational acceptance (serious here, im ignoring PS bait)

so you truly think most people are even close to being rational thinkers? fascinating.

[Phatscotty]

what's the modern alternative to religion?

rational acceptance (serious here, im ignoring PS bait)

so you truly think most people are even close to being rational thinkers? fascinating.

Isn't it though?

[GreecePwns]

Where would that value come from? Making of morally "good" people? That could be done without deluding them into clinging irrational beliefs with complete and unquestioning certainty. Helping the poor? That could be done without deluding them into clinging irrational beliefs with complete and unquestioning certainty.

without nearly as much effectiveness.

Modern capitalism is largely based on the belief that we get worldly rewards for worldly good deed: "If I do this, I will get a certain sum of money, or other tangible or intangible benefit with X monetary value." Religious belief is based on the belief that we get otherworldly rewards for worldly good deeds: "If I do this, I will be X closer to Heaven." These contradict each other, but in the end one side wins out. Surely the religious guy running Chick Fil' A is not seeking profit margins out of the goodness of his heart*: for nearly everyone, there is a point at which perceived worldly benefits trump perceived otherworldly benefits.

If we as a society were to remove the belief in otherworldly benefits for good deeds and emphasized the worldly benefits (like tax deductions, a recommendation for college/job applications, good publicity/fame, one year of unlimited games, speed games, even something as intangible as the warm and fuzzy feeling you get from supporting a website you love**), the same effectiveness would be achieved. In fact, the negative aspects of religion would also simultaneously be removed this way, producing an even larger net benefit to society.

*As an aside, my cold-hearted and blunt Korean corporate finance professor once said, "I would never hire a religious person. They're chasing something they believe is higher than profit margins, and to me they're wrong. This would be detrimental to business."

**Just the feeling that one is doing what they feel is "the right thing" applies here as well.

[john9blue]

raw capitalism is based on self-interest, though.

most religions are based on altruism, i.e. interest in the welfare of others.

and yet capitalism can produce a higher standard of living for others, and religion can produce benefits for one's own well-being. i don't see the contradiction here.

[comic boy]

what if religions aren't made by any god? what if they still have value despite that?

Up to a point yes , hence the establishment of various humanist societies but they currently lack the mass appeal of religion. In short religion promises rewards and this is alluring , human nature dictates that most of us expect payback of some kind.

[Phatscotty]

what if religions aren't made by any god? what if they still have value despite that?

Up to a point yes , hence the establishment of various humanist societies but they currently lack the mass appeal of religion. In short religion promises rewards and this is alluring , human nature dictates that most of us expect payback of some kind.

Some people just want to be good and lead a good life based on values passed down over millenea too. It's not just because they are expecting a reward. This isn't like handing out free cell phones and then expecting votes

Religions do have value that can be good or bad, regardless of whether or not it's deity is real, or whether or not every single word in it's holy book is true or false.

Fact: Christianity changed the world for the better, immensely.

[GreecePwns]

raw capitalism is based on self-interest, though.

Which is exactly what I said.

Society could make charitable work to be in the interest of individuals, using the incentives I've listed above and others that I haven't thought of. There's countless ways, really.

most religions are based on altruism, i.e. interest in the welfare of others.

It is not "based" on altruism. Religion is based on a belief in a supreme being, and a reward for certain behavior in the afterlife. The altruism is just a part of it.

In other words, you can go to Heaven by being altruistic or encouraging altruism, but in addition to that you must follow X or Y moral code, take view D on the origin of the universe and view E on other scientific issues in order to explain D, and perform rituals F, G and H once every week/day/year. Actively preventing practice A or B being being done by others also gives you bonus points. Failure to do/believe X,Y,C,D,F,G,H despite being altruistic results in eternal damnation.

See? That's an incentive system. Don't do all this, you go to Hell. Do all this, you'll go to Heaven.

Or you could be altruistic and not have to live with the fear of doing what a thousands year old book considers to be bad. In addition you could receive the incentives I've listed above and others.Which set of incentives is better for society?

Furthermore, which set of incentives will the capitalist choose in his workplace nearly every time? That involving worldly benefit for himself. If altruism is beneficial (be it for tax reasons, PR reasons, what have you), he will choose that. If enough of those incentives exist (or at least enough perceived benefit/awareness of said benefits), then we've achieved the same effectiveness without involving the negative aspects religion brings to society, making religion valueless.

[GreecePwns]

Some people just want to be good and lead a good life based on values passed down over millenea too. It's not just because they are expecting a reward

@john9blue, here's an example of an intangible yet still worldly benefit: the feeling that one is doing the right thing. Religion is not needed for that.

[Phatscotty]

Some people just want to be good and lead a good life based on values passed down over millenea too. It's not just because they are expecting a reward

@john9blue, here's an example of an intangible yet still worldly benefit: the feeling that one is doing the right thing. Religion is not needed for that.

What is needed?

[GreecePwns]

A set of morality opinions, which can be formulated without religion.

[Phatscotty]

A set of morality opinions, which can be formulated without religion.

but they can also be formulated with God? And from old books that act as guides and are full of examples from the past?

[GreecePwns]

A set of morality opinions, which can be formulated without religion.

but they can also be formulated with God? And from old books that act as guides and are full of examples from the past?

They can be, but they'd be without value. There are better ways to incentivize good deeds than the threat of eternal damnation for not doing them (and believing a certain origin story and performing certain rituals). We should utilize those ways, which result in worldly benefits and punishment.

[Phatscotty]

A set of morality opinions, which can be formulated without religion.

but they can also be formulated with God? And from old books that act as guides and are full of examples from the past?

They can be, but they'd be without value. There are better ways to incentivize good deeds than the threat of eternal damnation for not doing them (and believing a certain origin story and performing certain rituals). We should utilize those ways, which result in worldly benefits and punishment.

I know what you mean, about eternal damnation anyways. I came across that realization a long time ago. But is that what "the religion" did? Or is that what some guy who wanted to control people did and instituted?

Also, what are the better ways? Have they been tried? (I'm guessing recently they have been)

[john9blue]

It is not "based" on altruism. Religion is based on a belief in a supreme being, and a reward for certain behavior in the afterlife. The altruism is just a part of it.

In other words, you can go to Heaven by being altruistic or encouraging altruism, but in addition to that you must follow X or Y moral code, take view D on the origin of the universe and view E on other scientific issues in order to explain D, and perform rituals F, G and H once every week/day/year. Actively preventing practice A or B being being done by others also gives you bonus points. Failure to do/believe X,Y,C,D,F,G,H despite being altruistic results in eternal damnation.

See? That's an incentive system. Don't do all this, you go to Hell. Do all this, you'll go to Heaven.

Or you could be altruistic and not have to live with the fear of doing what a thousands year old book considers to be bad. In addition you could receive the incentives I've listed above and others.Which set of incentives is better for society?

Furthermore, which set of incentives will the capitalist choose in his workplace nearly every time? That involving worldly benefit for himself. If altruism is beneficial (be it for tax reasons, PR reasons, what have you), he will choose that. If enough of those incentives exist (or at least enough perceived benefit/awareness of said benefits), then we've achieved the same effectiveness without involving the negative aspects religion brings to society, making religion valueless.

can you give some examples of religions that have been influential on a society and have not advocated altruism?

[jonesthecurl]

Fact: Christianity changed the world for the better, immensely.

Source, please.

[GreecePwns]

john, my post is saying that it does not matter whether or not they have advocated altruism. Altruism is just one of many conditions they attach toward avoiding eternal damnation/reaching the promised land. It is possible to separate altruism from the rest or religious belief, which is overwhelmingly negative for the individual and for society. You can have one without the other. That's my point.

I know what you mean, about eternal damnation anyways. I came across that realization a long time ago. But is that what "the religion" did? Or is that what some guy who wanted to control people did and instituted?

Some guy didn't make that up, its a central belief of the religion for nearly every case.

Also, what are the better ways? Have they been tried? (I'm guessing recently they have been)

I've listed a few in my above posts.

[comic boy]

A set of morality opinions, which can be formulated without religion.

but they can also be formulated with God? And from old books that act as guides and are full of examples from the past?

But you agree that a God is optional and such books dont need to be specifically religious in tone.

[MeDeFe]

Kant's categorical imperative is a prime exhibit of a system of virtue ethics and not at all consequentialist.

The statement:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

is not at all an exposition of a particular system of ethics, it is simply a foundational concept of all reasonable systems of ethics.

Alright, I expressed myself unclearly there. Allow me to reformulate.
In his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kant (among a lot of other things) develops a system of virtue ethics, in which the categorical imperative is the central concept.

In all there are nine different ways in which Kant expressed the categorical imperative. The following are rough translations of two others of them by me.
"Act such, that you always treat humanity, both in your own person as well as in the person of everyone else, as an end and never as a mere means."
"For reasonable beings are all subject to the law, that each should never treat themself and all others merely as means, but always also as ends of themselves."

That goes way beyond weighing consequences and is in direct opposition to utilitarian theories. They are also expressions of exactly the same idea as is expressed in "act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

All it is, is the requirement that ethical beliefs need to be universalizable; they don't just apply to you, but mean something bigger about society.

No. See above. The categorical imperative is much more than just checking for universalisability.

It does exclude pure egoist/hedonistic philosophies, but those are not really ethical systems of the same type. Even a utilitarian needs some way to measure what is good, so that they can go out and maximize it, and so to have some objective sense of what it means to be good, your ethical decisions need to be universalizable.

What do you mean by "even a utilitarian"? Their problem is that there is more than one way of determining what is good, and that their theory can work perfectly well without any "objective sense of what it means to be good". That leads to some interesting consequences (getting drunk can be more ethical than reading a philosophical essay, torturing one person can be ethical if it makes many others happy. That's also why I found your previous assertion that "consequentialism is the form of ethics that makes the least number of arbitrary assumptions about the way things should work" somewhat amusing. The only way for consequentialists (like utilitarianists) to get rid of the unpalatable consequences of their premises is to introduce criteria that can only be described as "arbitrary". Of course, the criteria can be argued for and good reasons can be listed for why they should be included, but in doing so you move away from the simple theory you said it was and get swamped in exceptions to the rule.

In fact, you're supposed to disregard the consequences of any individual action. Following a strictly Kantian system of ethics, once you've determined that lying is bad, you're supposed to tell the nazi where the jews are hiding if he asks you.
(Possible solutions to this could be a hierarchy of maxims, or claiming that it is better to act against a maxim oneself than to cause another to act against a maxim.)

This formulation of the categorical imperative does not require rule-based deontology, for exactly the reason you list in your solutions. Obviously a rule-based system that says "do not lie" suffers from the problem you state. So you amend the rule to "do not lie unless by lying you can save an innocent person's life." Eventually your hierarchy or set of rules gets so complex that it is indistinguishable from consequentialism. I'm not sure why you believe that the statement listed above requires rule-based ethics, but it doesn't.

I think you might be looking for hypothetical imperatives here, which are expressed in the form "if you want to achieve x, do y" and which are always situational and conditional. Because of that, however, they are not a basis for acting morally and/or ethically. (At least according to Kant.)

[Metsfanmax]

Alright, I expressed myself unclearly there. Allow me to reformulate.
In his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kant (among a lot of other things) develops a system of virtue ethics, in which the categorical imperative is the central concept.

In all there are nine different ways in which Kant expressed the categorical imperative. The following are rough translations of two others of them by me.
"Act such, that you always treat humanity, both in your own person as well as in the person of everyone else, as an end and never as a mere means."
"For reasonable beings are all subject to the law, that each should never treat themself and all others merely as means, but always also as ends of themselves."

That goes way beyond weighing consequences and is in direct opposition to utilitarian theories. They are also expressions of exactly the same idea as is expressed in "act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

Those formulations, at least in the way you seem to be interpreting them, are very clearly not equivalent to the formulation I proposed. Consider the scenario where you have diverging train tracks, and one path has a person tied down, and the other path has two people tied down. The switch is currently set so that the two people would be killed by the oncoming train. What would Kant propose that we do in this scenario? The only possible answers are: 1) flip the switch and save the greater number of people, or 2) do nothing, because we are not responsible for deaths that we did not cause. If you treat your formulations as applying at the individual level, so that it is wrong to treat the single person as a "means" to saving the two, then you are left with a clearly unpalatable distinction between acts and omissions. You could have been responsible for saving a greater number of lives, but you didn't because you were afraid to treat the one person as a "means to an end." That absolution of responsibility can never be justified in a serious pragmatic ethical theory, and it shows why your interpretation of his statement fails -- it offers us no real solutions to the actually hard problems that affect real lives.

A more reasonable interpretation of his formulations is to say that he is advocating equal consideration of interests: when making an ethical judgment, you have to consider the preferences of all individuals involved, instead of ignoring the preferences of some minority in favor of a majority. If we treat it this way, we still have a clear and easy choice in the train scenario, because we weight equally the preferences of all involved and find that since all three of them probably have similar desires to continue living, we should save the two instead of the one. One should read Kant as expressing the idea that you should never commit an act against a person without first considering how this will affect that person's preferences/desires/happiness. Reading it as an ethical dictum to never weigh human interests makes you ethically paralyzed.

What do you mean by "even a utilitarian"? Their problem is that there is more than one way of determining what is good, and that their theory can work perfectly well without any "objective sense of what it means to be good". That leads to some interesting consequences (getting drunk can be more ethical than reading a philosophical essay, torturing one person can be ethical if it makes many others happy. That's also why I found your previous assertion that "consequentialism is the form of ethics that makes the least number of arbitrary assumptions about the way things should work" somewhat amusing. The only way for consequentialists (like utilitarianists) to get rid of the unpalatable consequences of their premises is to introduce criteria that can only be described as "arbitrary". Of course, the criteria can be argued for and good reasons can be listed for why they should be included, but in doing so you move away from the simple theory you said it was and get swamped in exceptions to the rule.

You find it problematic that people have different interpretations of what is "good;" I do not, because a shallow utilitarian "maximize the good" standard is not what I advocate. I am advocating something more in line with preference utilitarianism or act utilitarianism. This can still give reasonable answers (yes, torturing a person can be ethical if it would save many lives) without even responding to things outside the ethical sphere (like whether it is better to get drunk than read an essay). Perhaps you are struck by the many consequentialists who shy away from the "unpalatable" consequences of their broad stances. I do not. It can be "right" to do harm to one to save the lives of many, and it is very definitely "wrong" to kill a person without some good being achieved that is at least equivalent to the death of that person (which is very serious). The fact that some people might wrongly take from this that they could torture someone in front of a cheering crowd does not change the justification of the theory, it just makes those people stupid. The principle of equal consideration of interests must surely be weighted by the seriousness of those interests if we are to get meaningful results; but when we do this, we find that it is easy to show why you cannot torture someone just to get temporary happiness for a crowd.

[Lionz]

Tzor,

Where did dust come from? : ]

Crispy.

No it does fully represent my argument on that depending on definition at least, but how about address that and we move on with discussion concerning moon dust from there if you would like?

You might feel like discussion of us got out of hand, but why not address this if it's alot more broad sweeping and relevant to creation and evolution? Paste below from edit area of a page 86 post that should be read in full?

Also, what do you define as evolution if we are going to talk about disproving it?

"There are at least six different and unrelated meanings to the word "evolution" as used in science textbooks.

Cosmic evolution- the origin of time, space and matter. Big Bang.
Chemical evolution- the origin of higher elements from hydrogen.
Stellar and planetary evolution- Origin of stars and planets.
Organic evolution- Origin of life from inanimate matter.
Macroevolution- Origin of major kinds.
Microevolution Variations within kinds- Only this one has been observed, the first five are religious. They are believed, by faith, even though there is no empirical evidence to prove them in any way. While I admire the great faith of the evolutionists who accept the first five I object to having this religious propaganda included in with legitimate science at taxpayer's expense.
Even a quick review of a typical public school textbook will show that students are being deceived into thinking all six types of evolution above have been proven because evidence is given for minor variations called micro-evolution. The first five are smuggled in when no one is watching.

This deception is a classic case of bait and switch. One definition of evolution (such as "descent with modification") is given and the others are assumed to be true by association. The first five meanings are believed by faith, have never been observed and are religious. Only the last one is scientific. It is also what the Bible predicted would happen. The animals and plants would bring forth "after their kind" in Genesis 1."-http://carnivalsage.com/articles/hovind-kent-250000-evolution-offer.html

I'm not sure who has tried to claim that things do not bring forth variety through reproduction, but who shares common ancestry? Is it not true that similarity among creatures on even a genetic level can be attributed to both common ancestry and a common designer? If you were to design several different types of creatures on a computer program you might end up having an artistic signature in your work. You might end up finding eyes and arms and more to be both functionally useful and aesthetically pleasing and end up using eyes and arms on several original designs from a start. Should we look at eating utensils or limbs of living creatures and assume any similarity between either of the two groups would automatically be the result of common ancestry?





And what does the fossil record actually have to say? Pastes below from http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/sbs777/vital/evolutio.html with color added by me?

"In most people's minds, fossils and Evolution go hand in hand. In reality, fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation. If Evolution were true, we should find literally millions of fossils that show how one kind of life slowly and gradually changed to another kind of life. But missing links are the trade secret, in a sense, of palaeontology. The point is, the links are still missing. What we really find are gaps that sharpen up the boundaries between kinds. It's those gaps which provide us with the evidence of Creation of separate kinds. As a matter of fact, there are gaps between each of the major kinds of plants and animals. Transition forms are missing by the millions. What we do find are separate and complex kinds, pointing to Creation."
(Dr Gary Parker Biologist/palaeontologist and former ardent Evolutionist.)

"Modern apes ... seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans ... is, if we are to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter."
(Lyall Watson, Ph.D., Evolutionist)

"A growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp ... moreover, for the most part these 'experts' have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on scientific grounds, and in some instances, regretfully."
(Wolfgang Smith, Ph.D., physicist and mathematician)

"The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply."
(J.O'Rourke in the American Journal of Science)

"It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint, geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by the study of their remains imbedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of the organisms they contain."
(R H Rastall, Lecturer in Economic Geology, Cambridge University: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol.10 (Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1956, p.168)

"That a mindless, purposeless, chance process such as natural selection, acting on the sequels of recombinant DNA or random mutation, most of which are injurious or fatal, could fabricate such complexity and organisation as the vertebrate eye, where each component part must carry out its own distinctive task in a harmoniously functioning optical unit, is inconceivable. The absence of transitional forms between the invertebrates retina and that of the vertebrates poses another difficulty. Here there is a great gulf fixed which remains inviolate with no seeming likelihood of ever being bridged. The total picture speaks of intelligent creative design of an infinitely high order."
(H.S.Hamilton (MD) The Retina of the Eye - An Evolutionary Road Block.)

"Micromutations do occur, but the theory that these alone can account for evolutionary change is either falsified, or else it is an unfalsifiable, hence metaphysical theory. I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: ... I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?"
(S Lovtrup, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (London:Croom Helm, p.422))



You might argue life didn't come from a rock, but is that not essentially what many hold to be true if many figure that a big bang occured and earth cooled down and formed a hard rocky crust before being rained on and bringing forth life from amino acids?

What suggests to you that roses and dogs share common ancestry, if you stand by universal common descent or a theory of punctuated equilibrium that was proposed largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record that cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages? What would you even theoretically consider to be debunking evolution or proving creationism?

[crispybits]

Lionz, you say the quote I left doesn't fully represent your views on the moon dust argument, and then say lets deal with that, and then you go miles off topic with a load of stuff about evolution when evolution hasnt been a topic in this thread for god knows how many pages (which, by the way, whether it is proven or not does not prove that there is a God, you could totally debunk evolution and it wouldn't provide the slightest bit of proof of God)

If the quote I provided all those pages back doesn't represent your view on the moon dust argument, how about you tell me why not? You're the one saying it's evidence of your claim, so you're the one who should make sure your evidence is properly represented and understood before I start shooting holes in your arguments.

If you want to have the evolution debate you might be better off visiting this thread at the moment:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=182529

[Lionz]

What is off topic about that if it's stuff directed at you from page 86 that you've done little to nothing to address? Is creation and evolution not more relevant as to whether or not He exists than how fast dust accumulates on the moon?

"So pick a single point and I'll address it and we can argue about it all we like, but please also be prepared to show your sources as links rather than just copy/pasting from some unknown place (and I, of course, will do the same)."
-crispybits

And the quotes or whatever might represent me in a moon dust discussion well enough for the basis of a cc forum discussion at least so how about address them or we move on?

[Symmetry]

Lionz, you say the quote I left doesn't fully represent your views on the moon dust argument, and then say lets deal with that, and then you go miles off topic with a load of stuff about evolution when evolution hasnt been a topic in this thread for god knows how many pages (which, by the way, whether it is proven or not does not prove that there is a God, you could totally debunk evolution and it wouldn't provide the slightest bit of proof of God)

If the quote I provided all those pages back doesn't represent your view on the moon dust argument, how about you tell me why not? You're the one saying it's evidence of your claim, so you're the one who should make sure your evidence is properly represented and understood before I start shooting holes in your arguments.

If you want to have the evolution debate you might be better off visiting this thread at the moment:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=182529

I think your first mistake was responding to the Lionz account.

[Metsfanmax]

"The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply."
(J.O'Rourke in the American Journal of Science)

"It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint, geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by the study of their remains imbedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of the organisms they contain."
(R H Rastall, Lecturer in Economic Geology, Cambridge University: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol.10 (Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1956, p.168)

I find these quotes interesting because they represent what I perceive to be a strong misunderstanding of the fundamental science at work here. Carbon dating is a fundamentally physical process that has little to do with evolution or biology, except for the common sense understanding that the isotopic ratios are fixed when an organism dies, and can then only change because of radioactive decays. To challenge the knowledge gained from carbon dating is not to challenge geologists or biologists, it is to challenge our basic understanding of nuclear physics. To this is added the hypothesis that unless geologic processes were at work, then the layering of sediments represents a chronology. None of this is circular reasoning.