Is there evidence your god beliefs are true while other god beliefs are false?

[articulett]

How do you come to believe that you are not as deceived or misperceiving reality the way Tom Cruise is? Or Astrologers are? Or creationists are? I can't see any logical reason to believe one sort of faith based claim or god belief over any other supernatural claim or woo claim or claims of divine truths or powers or so forth. Beth and Plumjam and You and Tom Cruise and Darth Rotor and so forth make equally illogical arguments in support of their beliefs... so do the conspiracy theorists. I can understand why people believe certain things... but that doesn't make me believe that those beliefs are based on truth. I see no more evidence for Christian beliefs (which I was raised with) than for Scientologist beliefs or Mormon beliefs or reincarnation beliefs... But all believers must think they believe for good reasons even as they know other people believe wrong things for equally "good reasons". That's crazy. Clearly not all can be true-- but ALL can be false... and until there is actual evidence to show that consciousness can exist outside a brain, then the most logical conclusion is that they are all false because they are all based on the premise that it can. Unless someone has evidence somewhere that such a thing is a possibility, then ALL such beliefs are equally unlikely to be true. There is NO logical reason to believe one over the other. That's why I'm an atheist. You all are pretending to have some knowingness about this magical something that we have no reason to believe exists! And whatever your source for that knowledge can never be verified... that's pretty useless knowledge. And you pretend that it's good to have faith in this nebulous invisible concept--and that those who ask for evidence are bad guys. But you'd ask for evidence before believing in Scientology or Astrology or whatever it is that you've determined to be a myth, right? You have a double standard while pretending you don't--but it's so obvious to non believers that all woos do this to protect their woo-- their belief in "magic". They would rather believe a lie than to find out that they've been fooling themselves. It's true for Tom Cruise and it's true for all the theists on this forum. Belief is more important than the truth to most believers no matter how "profoundly honest" they want to tell you they are. I'm sure Tom Cruise thinks he's profoundly honest too. That doesn't make his beliefs true. Get it?

You have no logical reasons to disbelieve in most invisible entities that people have believed in, but not your own brand of such an entity. Whatever reasons you use to explain away their beliefs should also be used to explain away yours. Whatever reasons you have for explaining how the hijackers could believe so strongly in something so false or how Tom Cruise could-- should also be a reason for you to scrutinize your own beliefs for similar deception. Yet, you don't. Why not? How do you explain the wrong beliefs of those who did rain dances or sacrificed virgins and not wonder if you might not be making a similar fallacious inference? Because to me, you obviously are. You are like every woo that thinks their woo is true but doesn't give the same skeptical treatment to their woo as they give to Scientology or Greek Mythology or Astrology.

 

[Lithrael]

It seems like the idea of an absoulte morality (vs. relative morality) is similar as far as trying to argue and find evidence for, as the idea of a god/gods (vs. natural human feelings).

I think I get what I was trying to say.

The question of whether there is/what is the true absolute morality is a philosophical question. You can use observations to influence your search but those observations are still being applied towards a value which is essentially abstract. If you feel you have glimpsed the truth or are heading in the right direction you are wrong because there is not really any truth. You can point to moral systems near enough to yours and feel they have a kernel of truth; you can point to horiffic ones and agree they are nowhere near the truth.

But there is no truth there. Morality is just an emergent property of society, a complex social construct and not a real 'thing' of any kind. You can be skeptical all you want but if you don't see that you're being skeptical based on the values you hold rather than in search of a real thing you are mistaken.

Hm. I think my argument is the same as Epeos's, only I'm coming from the direction of nothing being there under the turtles.

To reiterate my slightly apologist position, I also concede that the idea 'anyone who is believing in things that don't exist, ought to cut it right out' is only another one of those moral values.

To reiterate my not at all apologist position, of all of the people I've met and most of the people I know of out in polite society, the ones who scare the crap out of me are religious.

 

[Mobyseven]

While that is a useful observation, it does not matter to the question, and assumption, that I was responding to in art's comment.

Yes, it does.

If you started agnostic and finished gnostic, then that would make sense. You were implying that you started agnostic and finished theist, which doesn't actually tell us anything interesting.

If you meant you started an agnostic atheist, then the implication that you finished a theist makes sense. Otherwise it's like saying, "I started as a white man, and finished Jewish." The two are not mutually exclusive, and the statement doesn't tell us whether or not you started Jewish, and whether you remained a white man at the finish.

So you started agnostic, and you're now a theist. Did you start your search as an atheist, or a theist? And at this stage, are you still agnostic, or are you now gnostic (in regards to your god beliefs, at least)?

 

[Mobyseven]

Okay. I think I get your question. At least I don't see any difference, nor would I change my answer.
Special treatments? I think theists are just asking for appropriate treatment. While I don't consider myself a theist, so I can't really answer for them, my interpretation of what they are saying (and what I don't disbelieve in) is the idea that there exists something behind the spiritual experiences that human beings have described over millenia. That it isn't all just emergent behavior/mistakes but accurate reporting of something that isn't available to us via other (i.e. materialistic) avenues.

There clearly exists things that are only available to us via our mental processes. One such thing we call mathematics. Another we call morality. I find Plumjam's analogy with morality interesting.

I don't feel you've answered it yet. You claim an evolutionary basis for morality. That's reasonable. So why do people steal? Why are some people moral in different ways that others? Why is homosexuality considered morally wrong? How can you justify any answers to why one morality is superior to another without recourse to the kind of 'evidence' that is used to justify belief in god?

You presume god, if any existed, would be materially evident in some way. Theists do not make that presumption. I agree with them that your presumption is not well justified.
And my answer, and well as that of some others, has been that they are not treated differently. Zeus exists just as much as every cultures gods exist. Including the Jewish god, the Christian god and and the Muslim god. We all see it as different manifestestations of the same phenomea.

How accidentally inappropriate. You compare god to mathematics and morality, things that do not exist outside of the human mind, as they are artificial constructs that don't exist in the real world.

I also happen to think that god doesn't exist in the real world. In making an argument you thought supported your position, you instead make an argument against it. Beautiful, beautiful irony.

 

[articulett]

How accidentally inappropriate. You compare god to mathematics and morality, things that do not exist outside of the human mind, as they are artificial constructs that don't exist in the real world.

I also happen to think that god doesn't exist in the real world. In making an argument you thought supported your position, you instead make an argument against it. Beautiful, beautiful irony.

Agreed. Thanks for pointing it out. I got lost in all the tangential questions that were meant to obfuscate rather than clarify, that I missed it. Reading Beth is like reading Claus... lots of words... but the more said the less I understand their point--I begin to doubt they have one.

 

[Herzblut]

How accidentally inappropriate. You compare god to mathematics and morality, things that do not exist outside of the human mind, as they are artificial constructs that don't exist in the real world.

Human minds and their constructs (like your funny message here) are not part of the "real world"? Then, a part of which world are they?

I also happen to think that god doesn't exist in the real world.

But this idea is not part of the real world, is it?

In making an argument you thought supported your position, you instead make an argument against it. Beautiful, beautiful irony.

May I recommend you read a post before you reply to it?

 

[Mobyseven]

No. Every human owns inalterable rights, human rights. When they can't actually demand such rights, a proxy has to demand those instead. The state itself being the last ressort proxy.

Basic survival rights are afforded to most humans, yes. But in extreme cases, a proxy may even decide to remove the necessary conditions for survival, and be morally justified in doing so. Rights are contingent upon responsibilities - when you become unable to fulfil certain responsibilities, you also lose rights. If you are no longer able to fulfil the responsibilities that accompany the right to drive a car, you will lose that right. If you are in a coma and unlikely to ever recover (which compromises your ability to fulfil any responsibilities at all), a proxy may decide to deny you access to what are regarded as the some of the most basic human rights - nutrition, water and oxygen.

While it may be very politically and socially savvy to suggest that there are rights that every human possesses, no matter what their mental state or physical condition, it is not techinically correct. A coma patient is afforded different rights is to a severly brain damaged adult, who is afforded different rights to an entirely capable adult.

Besides all this, why are you discussing 'basic human rights' where I was simply discussing rights? Even though I have demonstrated that there are situations where even the most basic of human rights may no longer be afforded, it doesn't change the fact that there are other rights in the world, access to which is restricted to those unable (for whatever reason) to fulfil the associated responsibilities - driving a car is one that I have already mentioned, the right to own a gun (depending on the country you are in, of course - I am in Australia) is another.

You mix up owning rights with demanding them.

You don't seem to have even a basic grasp of the relevant issues here.

I might also refer to babies.

Babies are not afforded equal rights to adults, in probably any country or culture in the world. In democratic societies, for example, babies are not afforded the right to vote. Babies are also excluded from the aforementioned right to drive a car, and own a gun. Babies don't even have the right to make their own medical decisions - those decisions instead being made by a proxy (parent or guardian).

Or sleeping?

When people are sleeping, they do in a sense lose a number of their rights. They lose the right to drive, to bring up an example I have previously used. Most sleeping people don't seem to mind this, as they would have to be awake to exercise those rights anyway. They do not lose basic human rights, because they are in a well defined temporary state of unconsciousness - and one that is necessary for them to remain alive and thus fulfil the responsibilities that go hand in hand with the other rights afforded to them.

Where I live, human dignity carries on after death. Postmortem personal rights follow directly from the constitution. Nobody will be "studied" unless consensually or forensically.

I didn't say they could (or should) be studied without consent or forensic requirement. But the human dignity afforded to dead people is not equivalent to having real, actionable rights post-mortem. What happens to a person's body and estate post-mortem is usually determined by a will - a legal document written by the person when they were still alive, and thus afforded legal rights. In the absence of a will, there are various methods of dealing with the distribution of an estate and the treatment of the person's body - none of which involve walking up to the person and asking them, seeing as how they will be unable to answer.

Treating a human corpse with dignity is not the same as affording a human corpse rights.

The concept of human dignity descents from christian ideas of man.

What a load of nonsense.

 

[Mobyseven]

But that's the thing - being sceptical about God doesn't mean being sceptical about only this one thing - whether He exists or not. At some point you ask that, make a decision, move on, and periodically review. I'm not at that point anymore, really. Now, for me it's a quest of finding out more about him. So, as a Christian, it's scepticism on different Christian doctrines. With other religions it's scepticism on how much in their religion I can find out and whether I can determine if it's true or even applies to me.

You can't tell me that scepticism never leads to answers, can you? You have had to have come up against something that you were sceptical of, researched it, and found it was true. So - once you find it's true - do you keep researching that same thing or move on?

Holding a belief that is unfalsifiable is unskeptical. When I find something to be true, it doesn't mean I set it aside and treat it any differently. There are still things that could falsify my belief in any number of things I consider with quite a lot of certainty to be true - evolution, for example. It doesn't mean that there actually is evidence that would contradict my belief, it just means that I can think of some kind of evidence that would force me to change my mind.

If you cannot conceive of anything that would change your belief about any given subject, you are not being skeptical about that subject.

I don't care if you already asked yourself the question "Is there a god?" and found the answer to be "Yes." - It doesn't mean that you should then unquestioningly accept that as true. I want to know, what is it that would make you change your mind as to whether or not god exists? If the answer to that is "Nothing," then you are not being skeptical about that belief.

You might not like me stating that so blatantly, but it doesn't make it any less correct. So I'll ask again - What would change your mind about the existence of god?

 

[Mobyseven]

Human minds and their constructs (like your funny message here) are not part of the "real world"? Then, a part of which world are they?

If intelligent life disappeared from the universe, so would the concepts of morality and mathematics.

If you want to define god as, "A specific pattern of neurons firing in the brains of intelligent life forms," go ahead. That god is as real as my preference for dark chocolate to white chocolate. It is also as real as unicorns, leprechauns, and me having sex with Angelina Jolie - all those things exist in my mind as a result of a particular arrangement and firing of neurons in my brain, but that doesn't mean unicorns and leprechauns exist, and it certainly doesn't mean that I've had sex with Angelina Jolie.

You may certainly define god how you wish - but as I've pointed out before, saying that, "God is this chair," only proves that you are able to label real world phenomena arbitrarily. Any further proof or statements derived from such a claim will either be a description of a chair, or a fallacy of equivocation.

You can say, "God is a particular arrangement and firing of neurons in the human brain," but that god is completely divorced from any other notions of god being omnipotent, or a creator, or omnipresent. To use the former to prove any of the latter would be equivocation.

May I recommend you read a post before you reply to it?

Might I recommend you gain a basic understanding of philosophical and scientific concepts before you join this discussion acting like an arrogant jerk?

 

[Herzblut]

Besides all this, why are you discussing 'basic human rights' where I was simply discussing rights?

I didn't say basic human rights, don't know what that means. We came from "in how far can racism be defeated naturalistically". You suggested equal conscience as an argument against racism and committed a well-known is-ought fallacy. You forgot?

Babies don't even have the right to make their own medical decisions - those decisions instead being made by a proxy (parent or guardian).

Fundamental here is the right for health care, not the duty to make any decisions.

What a load of nonsense.

Yeah. Try to be more ..compact.

 

[Herzblut]

Holding a belief that is unfalsifiable is unskeptical.

How would you try to falsify this belief of yours?

 

[Herzblut]

If intelligent life disappeared from the universe, so would the concepts of morality and mathematics.

You said

..snip.. mathematics and morality ..snip.. don't exist in the real world

Would you care to explain?

 

[Herzblut]

If you want to define god as, "A specific pattern of neurons firing in the brains of intelligent life forms," go ahead.

This pattern is the neural representation of one's belief in G, not G itself.

That god is as real as my preference for dark chocolate to white chocolate. It is also as real as unicorns, leprechauns, and me having sex with Angelina Jolie - all those things exist in my mind as a result of a particular arrangement and firing of neurons in my brain, but that doesn't mean unicorns and leprechauns exist, and it certainly doesn't mean that I've had sex with Angelina Jolie.

Nevertheless it might be situationally useful to pull this imagination onto your internal theater stage.

Seriously, all you will ever know of reality is your internal image of it. You will never know an object "as is", just your perception of it.

 

[Mobyseven]

*sigh*

I took Herzblut off ignore to have a conversation, only to find that he's still incapable of posting without contradicting himself or making a fool of himself.

To briefly run through - I committed no is-ought fallacy. You can't hand wave away the right to make decisions about one's own body by ignoring it like it doesn't exist. You can't compare an internally consistent axiomatic system to the empirical sciences by asking for proof or requiring a criteria of falsifiability. And you can't say that abstract concepts empirically exist in the real world - abstract concepts such as mathematics are the result of a particular arrangement and firing of neurons, and not the actual neurons themselves.

 

[Herzblut]

*sigh*

I took Herzblut off ignore to have a conversation, only to find that he's still incapable of posting without contradicting himself or making a fool of himself.

You still categorically exclude the possibility that you might be wrong. Very unskeptical.

To briefly run through - ...schnippel...

I let you go with all (OT) but with the following belief you articulated:

Holding a belief that is unfalsifiable is unskeptical.

Please show in how far THIS belief is falsifiable!

 

[Beth]

How accidentally inappropriate. You compare god to mathematics and morality, things that do not exist outside of the human mind, as they are artificial constructs that don't exist in the real world.
I also happen to think that god doesn't exist in the real world. In making an argument you thought supported your position, you instead make an argument against it. Beautiful, beautiful irony.

It was not an accident. It was quite deliberate. The argument of whether such things as morality and mathematics 'exist' is nearly as old as the argument on the existance of god.

Despite your confidence that such things have no existance outside the human mind, I am not convinced. Just as I am not convinced that no god exists outside of the human mind. Perhaps you are right. But perhaps you are not. I don't know.

My point is that when atheists complain about the 'special treatment' some god beliefs get, they are, IMO, complaining about not treating god like an object that exists in the material world. In fact, I see the believers as treating god like other beliefs in non-material things, such as mathematics or morality. I would find it just as inappropriate to say that someone is unskeptical because they believe that math exists regardless of whether intelligent minds exist to think of it.

If intelligent life disappeared from the universe, so would the concepts of morality and mathematics.

You probability didn't even notice the contradiction in these two posts. In the first one, you claim morality and mathematics are constructs of the human mind. In the second, you say that if intelligent life disappeared from the universe. The implication is that intelligent life will discover mathematics and morality independently of humans which implies they have an existance independent of human minds thinking of them.

Holding a belief that is unfalsifiable is unskeptical.

Like the unfalsefiable belief that mathematics or morality doesn't exist outside of an intelligent mind to think of it?

ETA: Here's an atheist physicist declaring that math exists independent of minds to think of it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/194

 

[plumjam]

Holding a belief that is unfalsifiable is unskeptical.

This is a statement of a particular belief of yours. And it's unfalsifiable.

 

[plumjam]

People have added mathematics to my suggestion of morality. I'd also like to suggest the whole area of aesthetics.

Few sane people would sincerely choose to listen to a chimpanzee banging a glockenspiel rather than, say, a Mozart piano concerto, or the Sgt Pepper Album, or Gong by Sigur Ros.
Almost everyone would express the belief that the latter examples are more beautiful than the chimp's attempts.

But where would the evidence for this belief about relative beauty be found?
Apart from their 'anecdotal' reports about their own inner conscious experiences in relation to the music, there is no evidence at all to be found anywhere in the 'external world' to support their beliefs.
In other words, you just have to take their word for it.

Few atheists would be willing to argue that musical beauty does not exist, is unreal, is illusory.. yet if asked to provide evidence (under the terms they have repeatedly applied to the OP) they'd be completely stumped.
Would that mean that enjoying music was 'unreal', delusional, wishful-thinking, a self-comfort dreamed up to soothe our fear of mortality..etc etc..?

If people want to find out about, or 'discover' the mathematical beauty that is real and exists 'out there'.. there are well tried and tested forms of action they can take. They can do mathematical practice.

If people want to find out about, or 'discover' the musical beauty that is real and exists 'out there' there are similarly well tried and tested actions they can take. They can do musical/compositional practice.

In exactly the same way, if people want to discover the spiritual truth that is real and exists 'out there' there are tried and tested methods to do this. They can take up spiritual practice.

The same applies in all 3 fields.
For some reason most atheists (I assume) would accept the first 2 fields, but reject the third.
Why is this?

(Anyway, I'm going off for Christmas, so Merry Christmas everyone, and enjoy the debating.)

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

Re-read what I wrote. You are hearing things I did not say. You accused him of calling you a liar... he was calling you unskeptical, not a liar.

I never accused him of calling me a liar either. I'm sorry, but I really have trouble understanding some of your accusations. Thanks for your patience with me.

He told me I was unsceptical. I told him I was being honest. It is not an implication of him calling me a liar, but that he was misunderstanding what I was saying. Mobyseven, if you're out there, I never took it as you calling me a liar and I never accused you of that. But I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I, in all honesty, can't imagine not believing anything. That's all. Now on with other things.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

They can... but clearly different or contradictory conclusions about the same reality means that somebody is making wrong inferences from the evidence.

Or it could be everyone is wrong, or that everyone is partially true, or that some are more truer than others, or ...

It's not always simply right or wrong - especially with religion.

I don't have problems with people calling themselves skeptical... I am just saying, your approach to skepticism seems as useless and unskeptical as those examples. If they work for you to find "your truth" then so be it.

I've found scepticism to be a very handy tool to navigate through the many opinions within Christianity. I've also found it a handy tool for everything else. It's just a handy tool.

You claimed you were profoundly honest after moby noted the obvious-- you are profoundly unskeptical when it comes to your own god beliefs--no evidence would be enough to convince you that you are wrong... just like no evidence could convince Tom Cruise that Scientology is wrong. That is unskeptical.

I'm sorry that I'm not as enlightened as some of you athiests, and I'm sorry that the truth is not so apparent to me.

But,

Aren't there ex-Scientologists? Aren't there ex-Christians? If so, then apparently people can move out of beliefs and into others. See - every post seems to come down to evidence. And my conclusion is - everyone's evidence one way or another is different. That is, what's evidence to one person isn't evidence to another necessarily.

As Moby said, you are profoundly unskeptical when it comes to your beliefs... but you are not so unskeptical when it comes to equally unsupported assertions. That's bias. It's not a good way to know any truths. It's a great way to convince yourself that you have the truth while keeping your from learning verifiable facts and useful knowledge that is far more likely to be true.

What is your process of scepticism? It seems to me that the approach you want me to take is: ME: I think I'll be sceptical of Christianity, therefore I will stop believing in it, toss it out the window, and start from there.

Instead what I do is: I think I'll be sceptical of Christianity, therefore I will start looking at the parts I am sceptical of and start making some decisions on it.

I'm sorry if during that process I didn't come to the same conclusion as you, but I'm not going to toss it out the window until I have a reason to. So far, scepticism has only changed my views within Christianity.