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

[blobru]

...I have reviewed this thread and conclude that the answer to the OP question, "Is there evidence your god beliefs are true while other god beliefs are false?", is "No".

The thread consensus is no evidence? Excellent. Further confirmation of and another stunning victory for Blism^TM! Non-believers rejoice in your non-belief, for truth has revealed itself unto you this thread with a complete lack of anything remotely resembling evidence for it. Your non-belief in the Truth based on this complete lack of evidence is duly noted and greatly appreciated by all deities concerned you may rest unassured. <in lieu of hossanas, please insert favorite 80's pop lyric>

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

The thread consensus is no evidence? Excellent. Further confirmation of and another stunning victory for Blism^TM! Non-believers rejoice in your non-belief, for truth has revealed itself unto you this thread with a complete lack of anything remotely resembling evidence for it. Your non-belief in the Truth based on this complete lack of evidence is duly noted and greatly appreciated by all deities concerned you may rest unassured. <in lieu of hossanas, please insert favorite 80's pop lyric>

So I take it you agree with me? Thank you!

 

[blobru]

So I take it you agree with me? Thank you!

You're welcome (I think).

But Blism^TM aside, for all its huffing and puffing this thread was a bit of a buttscratcher: more politics than religion.

It may be believers have too much invested in "god"'s existence to want to differentiate their beliefs and expose them to criticism / ridicule; maybe reducing one's faith to a matter of taste isn't much incentive; or maybe religion is just mellowing out in its old age (new age); all, some or none of the above?

Hard to say with no one talking...

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You're welcome (I think).

But Blism^TM aside, for all its huffing and puffing this thread was a bit of a buttscratcher: more politics than religion.

It may be believers have too much invested in "god"'s existence to want to differentiate their beliefs and expose them to criticism / ridicule; maybe reducing one's faith to a matter of taste isn't much incentive; or maybe religion is just mellowing out in its old age (new age); all, some or none of the above?

Hard to say with no one talking...

It wasn't intended to be political or religious. I was getting at the special treatment of some god beliefs over other god beliefs. How else do you address this contradiction? You can get into a long winded discussion of faith based beliefs and evidence based beliefs. Been there done that.

I want to look at the claim there even is such a thing as faith based beliefs and an untestable god or are these just concepts that were devised to avoid facing an inconvenient truth? In order to address the concepts in this case I asked people to put them into a real life example. Here are god beliefs you apply the regular skeptical rules to and here are god beliefs you apply special rules to. Why is that? Is that reasonable? Is it reasonable for skeptics who aren't theists to accept these special rules unquestioningly?

And after 20 pages, I believe we have the answer. It's too inconvenient to consider.

 

[Beth]

I want to look at the claim there even is such a thing as faith based beliefs and an untestable god or are these just concepts that were devised to avoid facing an inconvenient truth? In order to address the concepts in this case I asked people to put them into a real life example. Here are god beliefs you apply the regular skeptical rules to and here are god beliefs you apply special rules to. Why is that? Is that reasonable? Is it reasonable for skeptics who aren't theists to accept these special rules unquestioningly?

And after 20 pages, I believe we have the answer. It's too inconvenient to consider.

.

Huh? I'm telling you I consider the changes in god beliefs to those espoused by most of the theists in their thread to be an example of a changing paradigm just as the changes in atom beliefs are. If it's a 'special rule' as you term it, it's not unique to god beliefs, but to many other beliefs, such at atom beliefs and shape-of-the-earth beliefs.

[snip]I'll try to address these points later tonight but until you figure out what it is you are not getting about what is and what is not evidence, you probably will keep missing what I am saying about special rules and if you don't get what I mean by special rules, you aren't likely to understand what I am saying.

Since you've settled on an answer, perhaps you would have time to address these points now? Because I do not understand what 'special rules' you are talking about that exist just for god beliefs and are not being applied to anything else.

 

[blobru]

It wasn't intended to be political or religious.

By "more politics than religion" I meant politicians and their occupational vagueness; I never expected a free-forum online discussion about gods/religions could remind me so much of a press conference.

I was getting at the special treatment of some god beliefs over other god beliefs. How else do you address this contradiction? You can get into a long winded discussion of faith based beliefs and evidence based beliefs. Been there done that.

The logic of faith is where it's at.
Evidence for it is like pulling wisdom teeth.
I think the naive expectation of a god precedes faith in it or logic for it. Religious belief is just an attempt to objectify it. (Oh, so that's what I believe!)
Sure seems like much ado about nothing to a skeptic; but a millstone to one is an anchor to another, I guess.

I want to look at the claim there even is such a thing as faith based beliefs and an untestable god or are these just concepts that were devised to avoid facing an inconvenient truth?

To fill an incovenient void?

In order to address the concepts in this case I asked people to put them into a real life example. Here are god beliefs you apply the regular skeptical rules to and here are god beliefs you apply special rules to. Why is that? Is that reasonable? Is it reasonable for skeptics who aren't theists to accept these special rules unquestioningly?

It is funny that the Bible could be a textbook for "woo": psychics, seers, ghosts, angels, devils, cryptozoology, conspiracy theories, etal.
I don't see too much conflict myself between a metaphorical take on Biblical woo and a bare belief in its God. I'd rather God wasn't such a nob and a bully but at least Jesus put in a good word for the poor amidst his ravings.

And after 20 pages, I believe we have the answer. It's too inconvenient to consider.

Maybe last week was a bad time. Bit of a civil war going on around Xmas.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Politics is indeed an appropriate analogy, blobru. Now I see where you were coming from.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Since you've settled on an answer, perhaps you would have time to address these points now? Because I do not understand what 'special rules' you are talking about that exist just for god beliefs and are not being applied to anything else.

It's hard to explain this to you Beth, because you don't seem to get the key concepts that are needed to understand what is being said.

Since you are asking, however, I will try again.

In the case of the changing definition of atoms or any revolutionary scientific discovery for that matter, those concepts change as more and more observations are made, as more evidence accumulates.

In the case of the changing god definition, the concept changes by way of moving the goal post every time the research fails to produce any evidence. That alone applies a "special rule" to god beliefs. Science follows the evidence to where it leads. If we followed the evidence to where god beliefs led, we would conclude people invented god beliefs to explain things they didn't understand, and to try to influence things they had no way of influencing, not because they had any real contact with gods and not because gods were communicating with them through thought waves.

God beliefs have evolved over time. It became obvious to most educated modern people at some point in the past that a lot of god beliefs were just people's imaginations. Zeus, Pe'le, Ra, and so on are now called myths. But in the past, they were true god beliefs. I and many other skeptical observers note there is no real difference between mythological god beliefs and today's god beliefs that believers do not recognize as myths. To me and to many skeptics, it is obvious all god beliefs are mythological.

Rather than following the evidence, however, and rather than treating all god beliefs as myths, today's god believers made up a special category. They called that category, faith based beliefs. And they claim that their own god beliefs are based on faith. But here's the catch. All the god beliefs that are not based on faith are myths. The special rule of faith based 'evidence' does not apply to those myth labeled god beliefs.

A skeptic immersed in their own god beliefs may very well believe there is a special category of faith based beliefs in which the rules of the scientific process and evidence do not apply. I challenge those skeptics and agnostic/atheist skeptics to question that special category and special rules and ask themselves, is it legitimate? Is there really such a thing as faith based 'evidence' or is it just an excuse used to avoid having to face the fact there is no actual evidence that any god beliefs are based on real gods?

We know what you believe. You believe there is faith based 'evidence'. You called it something like an inner experience. I'm not sure if you recognize that this inner experience is not evidence as far as the scientific process is concerned. If you don't recognize that science does not accept your 'inner experience' as evidence regardless of what you believe, then you won't understand that using it for evidence is applying a special rule you could not apply in the scientific process. Nor could you use your 'inner experience' (again, regardless of what you believe about the validity of it), in the accepted rules of skeptical inquiry.

Aside from any argument about what is and what isn't a skeptic, there are set rules of evidence in both the scientific process and in the skeptical process. That's why someone's single anecdote is not sufficient as evidence for a claim. In both science and skepticism, an 'inner experience' would not be evidence even if a billion people believed their 'inner experience' was evidence of God. It just is not within accepted rules of evidence. You cannot change that because you believe otherwise.

So, believing otherwise is the same as applying a special rule to your god beliefs that is not allowed in skeptical and scientific inquiry. You implied you thought the 'inner experience' was evidence. Most skeptics who have or allow god beliefs just say the rules of evidence don't apply and call it faith based beliefs. Faith based evidence would include your 'inner experience'. Skeptical or science based evidence would not include it. Regardless of how you perceive the validity of 'inner experience' as evidence, you don't apply it to all god beliefs. That is unless you believe in every god myth there ever was. If someone said they had an inner experience which told them Pe'le was a real god, I daresay most skeptics would dismiss the claim as fantasy.

 

[arthwollipot]

The thread consensus is no evidence? Excellent. Further confirmation of and another stunning victory for Blism^TM! Non-believers rejoice in your non-belief, for truth has revealed itself unto you this thread with a complete lack of anything remotely resembling evidence for it. Your non-belief in the Truth based on this complete lack of evidence is duly noted and greatly appreciated by all deities concerned you may rest unassured. <in lieu of hossanas, please insert favorite 80's pop lyric>

(OT)
What would you call someone who ascribes to Blism? A Blisist?
(/OT)

 

[blobru]

(OT)
What would you call someone who ascribes to Blism? A Blisist?
(/OT)

Sure. Or -- Blistic, Blistant, Blisterian, Blismatic, Blist... -- most go with Blister, for in the words of the most unholy and unenlightened sAINT Whatziznutz: "know ye o non-believers, thou art but a blister on the butt of belief!"

As a further off-topic, I gotta say that since I converted to the one true faith, and fill up any doubt in my non-belief with the belief that believers get the opposite of whatever they believe as punishment for believing, for this is the essence of Blism^TM, I'm starting to understand why believers in those other false faiths are always grinning their butts off. The idea that everyone who disagrees with you is not only wrong but somehow missing out, maybe even pissing off the cosmos' conscience: pretty sweet world-views they got going on. Now every believer I meet, it's: "Hello (you're going to hell); hi there (and you're going to hell); hey (and you)..." what's not to like? It really does seem to satisfy some primal human urge to have the last word in an argument. "Amen (yo' mama!)" 'Cause we're a petty, petty species... and dumb as the day is long. Blisters too, just slightly less so. (I think.)

 

[Beth]

Skeptigirl,

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. I've snipped quite a bit out to reduce the length, but if you feel I've missed any salient points you want a response to, please let me know.

In the case of the changing definition of atoms or any revolutionary scientific discovery for that matter, those concepts change as more and more observations are made, as more evidence accumulates.
In the case of the changing god definition, the concept changes by way of moving the goal post every time the research fails to produce any evidence. That alone applies a "special rule" to god beliefs.

Every completed experiment produces evidence. This difference between the two changing definitions that you find so obvious is unclear to me. Just as with atoms, the concept of god has changed as more and more observations were made, as more evidence accumulated.

The definition of atom was changed in direct response to contrary evidence and that’s fine with you. People can continue believing in atoms, just with a different definition that is, in at least one sense, a complete reversal of the original concept. But when people do the same thing to the definition of god in response to contrary evidence, you term it a ‘special rule’. It seem to me that in both cases, the definition was changed as a direct result of experimental evidence that indicated the previous definition was wrong.

You haven’t made a good argument for why the two cases shoud be treated differently. Thus, it seems to me that it is you who is applying a ‘special rule’ to god beliefs and their changing definitions in response to experimental evidence.

God beliefs have evolved over time. It became obvious to most educated modern people at some point in the past that a lot of god beliefs were just people's imaginations. Zeus, Pe'le, Ra, and so on are now called myths. But in the past, they were true god beliefs. I and many other skeptical observers note there is no real difference between mythological god beliefs and today's god beliefs that believers do not recognize as myths.

Few if any of the skeptics arguing against you are contesting this point. I don’t think there is disagreement among skeptics on the viability of a literal interpretation of the Bible. The mythological roots of many biblical stories are well documented and the majority of believers, mainstream or otherwise, are not fundamentalists who believe the bible is literally true in every detail. That they recognize many of the stories as myths does not invalidate their belief in god. It seems to me that you want to classify every believer as a literalist rather than deal with the fact that they acknowledge the mythological roots of the bible yet still believe in god.

A skeptic immersed in their own god beliefs may very well believe there is a special category of faith based beliefs in which the rules of the scientific process and evidence do not apply.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what you mean by faith-based evidence, since I would classify subjective personal experiences as anecdotal evidence. Which is to say, it’s not very good, but it’s better than nothing. Could you explain what you perceive as the difference between 'faith based evidence' and anecdotal evidence? Or perhaps you could direct me to a post written by someone who claims faith-based evidence exists and gives an example that wouldn’t qualify as anecdotal or testimonial evidence.

I challenge those skeptics and agnostic/atheist skeptics to question that special category and special rules and ask themselves, is it legitimate?

In as much as I understand how you are defining ‘special rules’, then yes, I think it is legitimate to do so. I class god as belonging to the category of ‘intangible objects’ and thus, would apply the same rules to god believes that I do to beliefs about other intangible objects, such as justice, morality, or mathematics into this category. Can you tell me how the ‘special rules’ you perceive are being used for beliefs about god differ from the rules of evidence for beliefs about the existance of other intangible objects, such as justice or mathematics?

We know what you believe. You believe there is faith based 'evidence'. You called it something like an inner experience. I'm not sure if you recognize that this inner experience is not evidence as far as the scientific process is concerned.

Actually, I think you may have me confused with some other poster here. I don't recall using the term 'inner experience', though I might have forgotten it if I did. While I believe in the legitimacy of subjective personal experiences and testimonial evidence of such, I also understand it’s limitations. I have never claimed it to be of the same quality as scientific evidence, nor would I classify it as ‘faith based evidence’.

Aside from any argument about what is and what isn't a skeptic, there are set rules of evidence in both the scientific process and in the skeptical process. That's why someone's single anecdote is not sufficient as evidence for a claim. In both science and skepticism, an 'inner experience' would not be evidence even if a billion people believed their 'inner experience' was evidence of God. It just is not within accepted rules of evidence. You cannot change that because you believe otherwise..

We are all subject to the fallability of our senses and our interpretation of what we experience. Thus we all seek confirmation rom others that what they experience is the same as what we experience. That when we see the color we call red, others also see the color red. If a particular subjective experience is shared by a billion people, then it properly takes a great deal of solid evidence to convince humanity that the way they have jointly interpreted the common experience is wrong. This can happen. We know that, despite the evidence of our senses, the earth is spherical, not flat and rotates around the sun, not the other way round. So it is certainly possible that the common interpretation of an experience is incorrect.

Is it the case with god beliefs that everyone been wrong about their interpretation of subjective experiences that represent, to the person who experienced it, evidence of the existance of god? It's certainly possible, it is far from established that they are all mistaken.

 

[articulett]

Skeptigirl,


Every completed experiment produces evidence. This difference between the two changing definitions that you find so obvious is unclear to me. Just as with atoms, the concept of god has changed as more and more observations were made, as more evidence accumulated.

The definition of atom was changed in direct response to contrary evidence and that’s fine with you. People can continue believing in atoms, just with a different definition that is, in at least one sense, a complete reversal of the original concept. But when people do the same thing to the definition of god in response to contrary evidence, you term it a ‘special rule’. It seem to me that in both cases, the definition was changed as a direct result of experimental evidence that indicated the previous definition was wrong.

You haven’t made a good argument for why the two cases shoud be treated differently. Thus, it seems to me that it is you who is applying a ‘special rule’ to god beliefs and their changing definitions in response to experimental evidence.

Wow... did you miss the boat. As evidence for atoms has accumulated, our understanding has been clarified... as evidence for gods has failed to accumulate, god definitions just get murkier and more nebulous. Atomic theory produces results-- it's true whether you "believe it" or not. There's nothing about any god definition that comes anywhere close to that. All of the supposed evidence is not evidence of a god... just evidence that people can be made to believe all sorts of stuff so long as they can define it as "outside of scientific scrutiny".

The evidence you imagine for god can be evidence in support of any woo. The fact that you cannot see the difference between evidence for atoms and how it has amassed and evidence for god and how it just makes the god definition murkier, then there is some serious flaws in your thinking.

If the evidence for atoms had us positing atoms as undetectable "magic units" outside the realm of science, THEN that would be on par with God evidence. We use what we learn about atoms! There is nothing even useful about "god knowledge"-- because there just isn't any.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I tried my best Beth. You will have to learn what the rules of evidence and logic in the scientific process are before you are going to understand what it is you are getting wrong. Why don't you try some outside reading on empirical evidence to start with?

Inner experience, inner feeling, subjective feeling, whatever... it doesn't matter what you label it. I've said it repeatedly here, the feeling is evidence even if it is subjective that a person feels something. But the conclusion as to what the feeling or experience is is not evidence. It is a conclusion. If it were evidence then anything and everything I believe is evidence. That may sound good to your sensibilities, but it would make the scientific process absolutely useless if we used that standard of evidence.

And one of the reasons we know what is and isn't evidence is because that evidence, those rules, and the scientific process itself are tremendously successful.

Skeptigirl, ...

We are all subject to the fallability of our senses and our interpretation of what we experience. Thus we all seek confirmation rom others that what they experience is the same as what we experience. That when we see the color we call red, others also see the color red. If a particular subjective experience is shared by a billion people, then it properly takes a great deal of solid evidence to convince humanity that the way they have jointly interpreted the common experience is wrong. This can happen. We know that, despite the evidence of our senses, the earth is spherical, not flat and rotates around the sun, not the other way round. So it is certainly possible that the common interpretation of an experience is incorrect.

Is it the case with god beliefs that everyone been wrong about their interpretation of subjective experiences that represent, to the person who experienced it, evidence of the existance of god? It's certainly possible, it is far from established that they are all mistaken.

You are wrong here. We understand the color red not just because the majority of people confirmed that color, we have confirmation from a number of sources that are all consistent. We can measure the wavelength with a number of instruments. We can split the white light by passing it through a prism and see that bending the light produces different colors at different wavelengths. We can study the light receptors on the retina and discover how the brain registers color from the wavelength. In fact, we can see selectively firing nerves in the retina when light of different wavelengths hit the nerve receptors.

So you are making a mistake to think evidence is just about our senses and our brains. Besides, in the evidence you are describing, which amounts to indoctrinated people believing their "feeling" means gods exist, if you were to take someone never indoctrinated, they would not interpret those feelings as a god communicating with them. On that evidence we can conclude it is the indoctrination you are getting your belief from, not your inner feelings.

 

[Beth]

I tried my best Beth. You will have to learn what the rules of evidence and logic in the scientific process are before you are going to understand what it is you are getting wrong. Why don't you try some outside reading on empirical evidence to start with?

I've repeatedly stated that subjective personal experience is NOT scientific quality evidence. That's not the issue, your repeated digs at my understanding notwithstanding.

Inner experience, inner feeling, subjective feeling, whatever... it doesn't matter what you label it. I've said it repeatedly here, the feeling is evidence even if it is subjective that a person feels something. But the conclusion as to what the feeling or experience is is not evidence. It is a conclusion. If it were evidence then anything and everything I believe is evidence. That may sound good to your sensibilities, but it would make the scientific process absolutely useless if we used that standard of evidence.

I'm not suggesting or claiming that the scientific process use that standard of evidence. I'm stating that evidence need not be of scientific quality to be useful. We have different standards for different uses. This has been discussed extensively in the past. People, even skeptics, need not require scientific evidence to come to a conclusion - if they did, no jury could ever come to a verdict. It's important to recognize the limitations of the evidence available when determining the probability the conclusion is in error. Scientific quality evidence has a high probability, usually given precisely, of leading to correct conclusions.

And one of the reasons we know what is and isn't evidence is because that evidence, those rules, and the scientific process itself are tremendously successful.

Yes, the scientific process is tremendously successful in dealing with the material world. It's not been so successful in dealing with intangibles.

Besides, in the evidence you are describing, which amounts to indoctrinated people believing their "feeling" means gods exist, if you were to take someone never indoctrinated, they would not interpret those feelings as a god communicating with them. On that evidence we can conclude it is the indoctrination you are getting your belief from, not your inner feelings.

This, too, has been discussed previously. I find it a reasonable hypothesis, but it's still a hypothesis, not an established fact despite your insistance on that being the explanation. It's also reasonable to hypothesize other explanations, one of which is that people are accurately assessing and reporting their experiences.

 

[articulett]

.
Yes, the scientific process is tremendously successful in dealing with the material world. It's not been so successful in dealing with intangibles.

Yes science isn't successful in dealing with the imaginary either... or in convincing schizophrenics that their delusions are, in fact, delusions. But science is the best tool we have from separating the truth from mistaken perceptions.

This, too, has been discussed previously. I find it a reasonable hypothesis, but it's still a hypothesis, not an established fact despite your insistance on that being the explanation. It's also reasonable to hypothesize other explanations, one of which is that people are accurately assessing and reporting their experiences.

Which people... which experiences... we know for sure that some are schizophrenic, some are wrong, some are mislead, some are misinterpreting, some are fooling themselves, etc. We know that every cult can generate these feelings, but that they aren't based on anything true. So who do you imagine to be have real experiences about what exactly? Why would you imagine their experiences are real when we know how readily people can be fooled on this topic?

 

[GeeMack]

Beth, I asked you a few direct questions in post number 741 of this thread. It seemed these were clearly stated and relevant to the topic. Because you seem to be generally polite and willing to participate, for the time being I'll set aside the possibility that you're being rude. [...]

Okay, yep, looks like you're just plain rude, Beth. I thought maybe you were different from people like A Christian Sceptic, Fnord, and those others who come here spewing their nonsense about invisible beings capable of performing feats of magic. But you're not. Sadly, you're just like those other poor deluded souls.

You mentioned how your imaginary friend is subject to a changing definition. Then when I asked for your current definition, you turned and ran. You don't have the guts to acknowledge that you have no definition. You don't have the moral integrity to admit that you pulled your comment out of your butt and you're not willing to support it. You'll jabber on and pretend, but you can't even answer the question in the OP, simply and honestly. Whether it's cognitive dissonance or something else making you willfully ignorant, or just a lack of sense, you obviously don't understand that your belief in invisible beings is just as ridiculous as believing you'll get good luck by rubbing a rabbit's foot, wishing on a star, or finding a four leafed clover.

 

[plumjam]

Okay, yep, looks like you're just plain rude, Beth. I thought maybe you were different from people like A Christian Sceptic, Fnord, and those others who come here spewing their nonsense about invisible beings capable of performing feats of magic. But you're not. Sadly, you're just like those other poor deluded souls.

You mentioned how your imaginary friend is subject to a changing definition. Then when I asked for your current definition, you turned and ran. You don't have the guts to acknowledge that you have no definition. You don't have the moral integrity to admit that you pulled your comment out of your butt and you're not willing to support it. You'll jabber on and pretend, but you can't even answer the question in the OP, simply and honestly. Whether it's cognitive dissonance or something else making you willfully ignorant, or just a lack of sense, you obviously don't understand that your belief in invisible beings is just as ridiculous as believing you'll get good luck by rubbing a rabbit's foot, wishing on a star, or finding a four leafed clover.

Rude?
Wow, pot meet kettle.
(rudeness bolded by me)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I've repeatedly stated that subjective personal experience is NOT scientific quality evidence. That's not the issue, your repeated digs at my understanding notwithstanding.

But you clearly do not understand. How else should I say that?

"NOT scientific quality evidence"

What makes something scientific quality evidence? Not the study design, not the accuracy of the research, not the final outcome of a study. Those are all the kinds of things that effect the interpretation of evidence and conclusions from the evidence. That is the scientific quality you are referring to.

The evidence, is the same regardless of what one does with it. In other words there are not two kinds of valid evidence. There is valid evidence and there is invalid evidence. What you are describing are two different standards of rigor in evaluating the evidence and in drawing conclusions about the evidence. And you don't understand that. Sorry, but you just don't.

I'll say it again, whatever you 'feel' IS the EVIDENCE. What you 'believe that feeling means' is a conclusion. Conclusions are not evidence.

You want that 'feeling' to be the same as seeing the color red. If that were the case, then every person with an intact nervous system who had that 'feeling' would interpret it the same, just as everyone with an intact nervous system sees the same color red. Perhaps if I put it another way. What a person sees is the evidence. The fact they recognize it as red is not the evidence. However, we have a lot of things which have given us confidence that interpreting the color red is a correct interpretation. I already mentioned a few, every person with an intact nervous system experiences the visual effect. We can look at the wavelength of the light and so on and so on.

You cannot do anything to confirm that someone interpreting a subjective experience as evidence of God is actually evidence of God. Scientific quality has nothing to do with it. 'Beliefs' in and of themselves are just not evidence no matter how you cut it. Period, fixed in stone, no gray area, stop trying to make a case for it, because you cannot.

I'm not suggesting or claiming that the scientific process use that standard of evidence. I'm stating that evidence need not be of scientific quality to be useful. We have different standards for different uses. This has been discussed extensively in the past. People, even skeptics, need not require scientific evidence to come to a conclusion - if they did, no jury could ever come to a verdict. It's important to recognize the limitations of the evidence available when determining the probability the conclusion is in error. Scientific quality evidence has a high probability, usually given precisely, of leading to correct conclusions.
Yes, the scientific process is tremendously successful in dealing with the material world. It's not been so successful in dealing with intangibles.

Same thing, you are talking about a rigorous scientific study of the evidence compared to a casual interpretation of the evidence. The evidence is the same in both cases, there are not two levels of evidence. There are many levels of evaluating evidence. The feeling is evidence. You can say that you choose to draw a less than scientific conclusion from the evidence. That is essentially what god believers all do. They draw an unscientific conclusion from whatever it is they perceive to be the evidence. The fact they draw that conclusion, however, or even that a couple billion people draw the same unscientific conclusion, does not elevate that conclusion to make it evidence of gods. It is evidence a couple billion people believe things based on invalid evidence, but it is not evidence that god beliefs are based on real gods.

This, too, has been discussed previously. I find it a reasonable hypothesis, but it's still a hypothesis, not an established fact despite your insistance on that being the explanation. It's also reasonable to hypothesize other explanations, one of which is that people are accurately assessing and reporting their experiences.

Conclusions are always subject to opinion. I conclude there is overwhelming evidence for my conclusion and zero evidence for yours. But that is my opinion.

 

[Beth]

But you clearly do not understand. How else should I say that?

"NOT scientific quality evidence"

What makes something scientific quality evidence? Not the study design, not the accuracy of the research, not the final outcome of a study. Those are all the kinds of things that effect the interpretation of evidence and conclusions from the evidence. That is the scientific quality you are referring to.

Well, I happen to think that study design and accuracy of the reseach do, in fact, make something scientific quality evidence. I agree that final outcome does not. I think we've had this discussion before. Yes, I use a broader definition of the word 'evidence' than you do. If you prefer, I can try to switch to the word 'information' as a more inclusive term. I try to consider all the evidence/information available to me, weighing it as I think appropriate.

The evidence, is the same regardless of what one does with it. In other words there are not two kinds of valid evidence. There is valid evidence and there is invalid evidence.

I find it more useful to rate evidence/information on a continuous scale rather than the binomial categorization you are suggesting. For example, I would give information acquired as a part of well-designed study and published in a peer-reviewed journal more weight than an anecdote told by a stranger on the Internet. I don't accept the first one as valid and reject the other as invalid. Instead, I estimate the probability of the first as highly likely to be accurate and other as much less so.

You want that 'feeling' to be the same as seeing the color red. If that were the case, then every person with an intact nervous system who had that 'feeling' would interpret it the same, just as everyone with an intact nervous system sees the same color red.

Er, not only do we NOT know that everyone with an intact nervous system would see the color red the same, we know that some people don't. They are color blind. We cannot conclude with any certainty that everyone who can distinguish red sees it as the same color as everyone else. It is the nature of subjective experiences. The uncertainly of whether what other people experience is the same applies to all subjective human experiences.

Perhaps if I put it another way.

It's not that I don't understand you. It's that I don't agree with you.

What a person sees is the evidence. The fact they recognize it as red is not the evidence.

They cannot communicate what they see to anyone else without expressing their 'evidence' as a 'conclusion'. If a person testifies on the witness stand that the killer was wearing a red shirt, is that not evidence to the jury? Your delineation here of what is evidence and what is not seems inappropriately limiting to me and I doubt you actually use such a narrow definition of 'evidence' for other situations. If you were sitting on a jury, I suspect you would consider the testimony given by various witnesses to be 'evidence'.

You cannot do anything to confirm that someone interpreting a subjective experience as evidence of God is actually evidence of God.

No, just as I cannot confirm that someone who interprets of subjective experience of viewing a color is evidence that 'red' actually exists. But it's one possible explanation for the consistency of the reported experiences.

you are talking about a rigorous scientific study of the evidence compared to a casual interpretation of the evidence. The evidence is the same in both cases, there are not two levels of evidence. There are many levels of evaluating evidence.

I think you arguing semantics here than make little difference to either the point that we evaluate the evidence available differently. You call it 'invalid'. I call it 'unscientific'.

The feeling is evidence. You can say that you choose to draw a less than scientific conclusion from the evidence. That is essentially what god believers all do. They draw an unscientific conclusion from whatever it is they perceive to be the evidence.

I don't think anyone's arguing that the conclusion that a god exists is a scientific conclusion. It's fairly well-established that it's not. That something is not a scientific conclusion doesn't mean it is a wrong conclusion.

The fact they draw that conclusion, however, or even that a couple billion people draw the same unscientific conclusion, does not elevate that conclusion to make it evidence of gods.

Well, it's certainly not proof, but yes, I think it qualifies as evidence. If a couple billion people draw the same unscientific conclusion that a particular color is what we call 'red', I think that qualifies as evidence for the existance of that color even if not everyone can distinguish it, even though we can't be certain that everyone experiences it the same and even though different cultures have different names for it.

Conclusions are always subject to opinion. I conclude there is overwhelming evidence for my conclusion and zero evidence for yours. But that is my opinion.

That's fine. You are certainly allowed to evaluate all the evidence for god as being invalid and thus draw the conclusion that no god exists. But just because you have decided that all the evidence/information accumulated by the human race for the existance of any sort of god is invalid doesn't mean that everyone else must evaluate it the same way as you do. I look at the same evidence and find it insufficient to draw a firm conclusion. Others examine it and conclude that god exists.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

I find it more useful to rate evidence/information on a continuous scale rather than the binomial categorization you are suggesting. For example, I would give information acquired as a part of well-designed study and published in a peer-reviewed journal more weight than an anecdote told by a stranger on the Internet. I don't accept the first one as valid and reject the other as invalid. Instead, I estimate the probability of the first as highly likely to be accurate and other as much less so.

Just some observations:
Even if all you had where different anecdotes to go off and nothing else, the deliverer of the anecdote is also going to make a difference on how you accept it or consider it. If it's someone you know and trust their anecdote is going to weigh more than a strangers anecdote and both are going to be considered more than someone you know who is untrustworthy. And all that trustworthy / untrustworthy assumptions you make come from your own personal experiences (or lack of) with those people.

I'll consider my family's anecdotes more trustworthy than you might (since you don't know them). But if you know me well and thought I was trustworthy - then by me telling you my family is trustworthy, you would then possibly weigh their anecdotes a bit more than you normally would - even though they would still be strangers to you. Etc.