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

[articulett]

As drkitten pointed out to you in another thread, beauty is something that can be quantified, analysed, and tested. The various elements that make something beautiful (whether it is music or flowers) can be separated and tested individually.

This cannot be said for religious beliefs, otherwise it would be easy to provide the scientific proof for or against god that you and others have requested repeatedly.

Yes. Opinions exist. Opinions about whether something is beautiful exist. The things that they categorize as beautiful or not exist. You can't prove that something is or isn't beautiful only that certain percentages of people classify this thing in this manner. Whether something is beautiful is not an objective truth.

Opinions of Gods exist. Opinions about whether these assorted gods are based on more than imagination and to what extent exist. But gods themselves show no evidence of existing in any way. Belief in gods is not evidence of gods. Gods are asserted as being "objectively true"-- no one thinks their god is imaginary... nobody thinks of their god as being on par with whatever Zeus believers believed in... nobody thinks of their god as a myth or "an opinion". Nobody thinks that Xenu is the same as their god. And yet there is no objective evidence that says that any god belief could be based on more than that. They do feel that about the gods they don't believe in-- they feel that about all the things they call woo and all the invisible entities they never believed in... but their own god gets a pass... it is never subject to such scrutiny. They cannot admit that others have no more reason to accept their beliefs as true than they have for accepting Scientology or Islam or Astrology as true. And inside they know that this makes their "truth" on equally shaky ground and they resent those who point out that fact.

How can any skeptic take any such beliefs seriously when they are all so clearly products of the myths of their culture... they are so clearly based on inferences and confirmation bias... there is no evidence there... none... the stuff that makes them dismiss other religions as mythological or mistaken are the exact same things that allows atheists to dismiss theirs.

There has been no valid reason to suppose that any god people do believe in is any more likely to be true than all the ones they don't. I see no reason to believe in any gods or to show special deference to those who claim to "know" things on a topic no one can "know" about. I take all god beliefs as seriously as someone's claims that they know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin... or they know the perfect rain dance guaranteed to bring rain. How are they different? There just isn't any real difference, is there?

 

[Hokulele]

Yes. Opinions exist. Opinions about whether something is beautiful exist. The things that they categorize as beautiful or not exist. You can't prove that something is or isn't beautiful only that certain percentages of people classify this thing in this manner. Whether something is beautiful is not an objective truth.

I agree that it is subjective, but that is beside the point I was trying to make. The main reason I do not like to compare beauty to religious beliefs is the fact that beauty can be tested to determine exactly which properties make a thing beautiful to certain people, but not to others. The roles of symmetry, color, rhythm, and harmony can all be scrutinized. Not so with "god", especially when the concept is never clearly defined, and no properties as assigned to this concept.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Mobyseven:

What would change your mind about the existence of god?

_______________

And I'll tell you again - I can't think of anything. You tell me what should. Maybe give me an idea of what should change my mind.

What keeps you from believing in the existence other Gods ?

When you say " I can't think of anything .. ( that would change your mind about the existence of god ), you are saying the existence of god is not falsifiable; and that is the antithesis of skeptical thinking..

Yes, I know, that keeps coming up, but it is actually the heart of the OP, that you continue to participate in, without answering...


When you choose one god over another, you should be able to say why .. No ?

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

I agree that it is subjective, but that is beside the point I was trying to make. The main reason I do not like to compare beauty to religious beliefs is the fact that beauty can be tested to determine exactly which properties make a thing beautiful to certain people, but not to others. The roles of symmetry, color, rhythm, and harmony can all be scrutinized. Not so with "god", especially when the concept is never clearly defined, and no properties as assigned to this concept.

I guess what I was thinking about is that what is beautiful is largely cultural and personal, but the idea that there is a thing called Beauty seems to be culturally universal. That is, the idea that some things are beautiful is in all cultures.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

When you choose one god over another, you should be able to say why .. No ?

I personally compare them to the God I currently worship to decide these kind of things. If the other god is less, then I keep what I have. If it's the same, there is not conflict. If it is more, then probably God is bigger than I thought.

 

[Hokulele]

I guess what I was thinking about is that what is beautiful is largely cultural and personal, but the idea that there is a thing called Beauty seems to be culturally universal. That is, the idea that some things are beautiful is in all cultures.

True. I recently read Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire and several biologists have made a fairly strong case that the concept of beauty is very likely to have evolved due to the fact that recognition of characteristics associated with beauty would be very advantageous when it came to selecting mates or choosing the most valuable foods. Recognizing beauty is cool. Understanding why and how beauty affects people is even cooler in my mind.

 

[articulett]

I agree that it is subjective, but that is beside the point I was trying to make. The main reason I do not like to compare beauty to religious beliefs is the fact that beauty can be tested to determine exactly which properties make a thing beautiful to certain people, but not to others. The roles of symmetry, color, rhythm, and harmony can all be scrutinized. Not so with "god", especially when the concept is never clearly defined, and no properties as assigned to this concept.

Yes.... I agree. And I was trying to follow up-- Beauty is a subjective experience based on actual things that objectively exist... gods have the subjective experience part down--but nothing that objectively exists that others can examine. They are the same as delusions and imaginary friends as far as being subject to examination.

It does get muddled with this constant tendency of theists confuse subjective experiences with objective facts. How many times have I heard the strawman, "you can't prove love-- (therefore my woo is true.)"

 

[Hokulele]

Yes.... I agree. And I was trying to follow up-- Beauty is a subjective experience based on actual things that objectively exist... gods have the subjective experience part down--but nothing that objectively exists that others can examine. They are the same as delusions and imaginary friends as far as being subject to examination.

Ah, got it. Thanks!

 

[articulett]

Ah, got it. Thanks!

There is nothing we can examine if someone tells us their imaginary friend is beautiful... just like there is nothing we can examine if someone tells us that "432 angels can dance on the head of a pin".

Theists are always asserting things like the former and then pretending your inability to address the claim means something in favor of the claim. They pretend these kind of statements are on par with "Mozart wrote beautiful music" or "all men are created equal". The latter are opinions based on things that exist. They can't be falsified because they are opinions. The former, however, are assertions about a supposed truth that presupposes the existence of things not known exist! They can't be falsified or even examined because they don't really mean anything... yet they infer a boatload of supernatural magic that can't be detected by scientists. As such they CAN be dismissed as woo.

I was sympathizing with your entanglement of trying to explain why the two are not equal... it's the kind of conversations the woo always draw skeptics into while avoiding the real questions... such as the one in the OP.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....

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. ....

This is an example of what I mean by special treatment of god beliefs. Here is a way to explain a god which becomes increasingly less likely as the evidence is collected. So instead of accepting the possibility the reason there is no evidence is because there is no god, the believer makes up the special rules, the formless, untestable god.

Here's the problem. Those rules did not exist when gods were first believed in by humans. The gods which were the original gods did have physical existences as far as the history of them and some current beliefs go. Still, that alone doesn't have to imply the untestable formless god doesn't exist. My question is, however, at one time you have all these god beliefs which involve equally physical gods. And today we have much of the human population each picking out one or more of those gods to believe in.

Some still believe their special physical god belief is true. For those people, from an outside objective standpoint, it would seem they have arbitrarily chosen which gods were real and which weren't. Location and culture determined which god belief they would adopt rather than some testable evidence one god was real and the rest weren't.

For still other people, the same thing occurred, they determined they would believe in one or more gods but not all gods. As they adopted an evidence based world rather than the superstition* based world, the obvious problem then was how to maintain those god beliefs in spite of the mounting evidence against the existence of a real god. So you adopt special rules. You change the definition of god. You also however leave a whole slew of god beliefs, the ones you rejected, in the evidence based world. Pe'le, Ra, Zeus and the rest are not afforded the special rules. Why is that? What differs about those god beliefs? And, are you aware the special rules and changed definitions would not have been applied to god beliefs 10,000 years ago?

In this thread a new special rule has been discussed. We have many different and incompatible god beliefs in existence today. That is evidence god beliefs have more to do with human imagination than a real god. A real god should produce consistent beliefs at least by large numbers of peoples independently. The evidence is in the way of the god belief once again. So now the god belief begins to change. All these variations are merely different cultural expressions of the same god. Of course that doesn't follow the evidence. As with the other special god belief rules, it fits the evidence to the existing belief.


I propose the special rules are not an explanation for how one becomes aware of the existence of a god which is untestable. Rather, the special rules are just a way of fitting the evidence to the conclusion.



*By superstition based I mean non-systematic and often erroneous conclusions drawn from evidence and non-evidence alike.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Merry Christmas everyone. I will be away from the computer mostly for the next couple days. I haven't abandoned the thread.

 

[GeeMack]

I personally compare them to the God I currently worship to decide these kind of things. If the other god is less, then I keep what I have. If it's the same, there is not conflict. If it is more, then probably God is bigger than I thought.

Round and round you go, CS. Would you please knock off the desperate sidestepping of the question in the OP, and tell us how you do it. You're saying you have a way to determine that a particular god is more real than another. You've used some method to come to a decision that Zeus and Pele aren't as big and bad as your own favorite imaginary pal. You seem to think you can determine that any of these deities or the multitudes of other gods are objectively comparable to some magical being of your liking.

(You do realize that by claiming to have compared the size of your personal god against others, you're implying that you actually believe in the existence of more than one god, or maybe even every god, all the thousands (millions?... billions?) of them. But we'll leave your polytheism for another conversation, shall we? )

What do you use to measure those gods you've compared? On what scale, with what sort of measuring instrument, specified in what format? What criteria do you consider when deciding that a god is less or more than another? Most importantly, and speaking directly to the issue raised in the OP, how can other people apply your system of gauging these differences?

Or, will you be honest and admit that there is no objective way to determine the better/worse, bigger/smaller, realer/faker of all the gods that might be out there? Are you honest enough to admit that your notion of a particular god being closer to real than another, or more worthy of worship, or more appropriately believed-in, is as subjective as your opinion on whether ice cream or cake makes a better dessert?

Your turn to be completely honest, CS, honest to the bone if you have the spine to do it. Give us the objective method you use to support your belief in a particular god, or admit that you can't.

 

[Belz...]

There is nothing we can examine if someone tells us their imaginary friend is beautiful... just like there is nothing we can examine if someone tells us that "432 angels can dance on the head of a pin".

I counted 439, last I checked. But of course, these particular Angels were in pretty bad shape. We don't tend to be very kind to them, down here.

 

[articulett]

I counted 439, last I checked. But of course, these particular Angels were in pretty bad shape. We don't tend to be very kind to them, down here.

Since I can't give you evidence to prove you wrong-- it must be true!

I used CS's reasoning:

I personally compared your number to the number I believed. Since your number is more, then probably the real number is bigger than I thought. Your number wins! This theistic skepticism is easy!

 

[articulett]

Merry Christmas everyone. I will be away from the computer mostly for the next couple days. I haven't abandoned the thread.

Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, Merry Solstice, and may a joyous festivus be yours! I'll miss you.

 

[articulett]

Your turn to be completely honest, CS, honest to the bone if you have the spine to do it. Give us the objective method you use to support your belief in a particular god, or admit that you can't.

... waiting...

I predict that there will be more sidestepping and not answering...

 

[Mobyseven]

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


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!

Okay, this is already something I've dealt with, and it will be the last time I respond to your drivel on this thread.

Does the following statement make sense to you: Internally consistent axiomatic systems are not the same as the empirical sciences.

If it does, stop spouting nonsense. If it doesn't, you'll just have to wait until someone invents a cure for ignoring the blindingly obvious.

 

[Mobyseven]

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.

Argument from antiquity.

(Yes, that is a logical fallacy. Go look it up.)

Despite your confidence that such things have no existance outside the human mind, I am not convinced.

Oh, really? What evidence do you have that has made you unsure of this? Would you kindly present it?

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.

What evidence have you been presented with that would make you unsure as to whether god exists outside of the human mind? Would you kindly present it?

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.

If god is able to interact with the material world in any way, shape, or form, then there must be some material component to god, and it is this component we could test for. If god doesn't interact with the world in any way, shape or form, then Occam's Razor dismisses it - after all, what does it even mean to say that a completely undetectable entity that does not interact with the world in any way 'exists'?

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.

I would say that person is being incredibly unskeptical, unless of course you can present me with evidence that mathematics and morality do exist outside of the human mind.

Also, I would say that your observation that believers treat god in the same way as they treat mathematics (leaving morality, as many believers see it as being tied inseperably to the concept of god) would have to be based on a severly limited sample of unrepresentative believers. Most theists do believe in a god that has a material presence or influence on the world - the type that you describe are most definitively in the minority.

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.

That you fail to grasp that questions of morality arise as a result of a species becoming self-aware and able to ask questions such as, "Why am I here?" and "How should I treat other people/martians/klaaaaaatui?" does not mean that there is any contradiction - it just means that you don't grasp the concepts, which seems to be a running theme with you.

Similarly with mathematics - any species that has evolved to the point that we would consider it to be 'intelligent life' will probably have developed at least basic mathematical skills to explain patterns and describe the world around them. Just because something is a good model for reality, it doesn't mean that it is reality - it is still a model, no matter how good it is.

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

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND BEAUTIFUL IN THE WORLD, IS THERE NOT ONE DAMN THEIST OR APOLOGIST ON THIS FORUM THAT CAN UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN INTERNALLY CONSISTENT SYSTEM, AND A SYSTEM BASED ON EMPIRICAL OBSERVATION? JUST FREAKIN' ONE?

 

[Mobyseven]

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

SERIOUSLY. JUST ONE WOULD BE NICE...

 

[Mobyseven]

And I'll tell you again - I can't think of anything. You tell me what should. Maybe give me an idea of what should change my mind.

Then you are holding an unfalsifiable belief. Stop telling me to propose a method of falsifiability - it is your belief, and your burden to propose a method by which it could be falsified.

You can't ask me to be skeptical for you. Stop being so damn lazy - either propose a method by which your belief in god could be falsified, or admit that you are being unskeptical about your belief in god. It's not that difficult.