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Theists: Please give me a reason to believe in your superpowered invisible overlord

Aepervius said:
Sure feeling have an origin in the brain. They may even be simply something which was not selected *against*. If it is not selected against, then why should it disappear (or it may even have been selected for).

So what now ? You are still with "religion have to be taken on faith" or "it is all in the brain" and will not advance further. Nobody has advanced further in all history of religion. Each time they tried to attribute something to their god as proof, it turned out later it was not.

So, again, what now ?
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Read my response above. You are making it sound like the purpose of religion should be to promote technology or something. Why must that be the case? Must everything that has a purpose have a purpose that is designed to give you a better smart phone or a less painful tonsilectomy? And mind you, Im a very strong proponent of the scientific method--i wouldnt be here if i weren't.
I'm also agnostic. But I don't subscribe to the 'religion is inherently evil' principle that some here are fond of.
 
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Lowpro said:
What does it matter about your certainty though? Surely you don't rely on certainties when likelihoods work well enough. When people argue that they can't be certain about whether God doesn't exist that's honestly the most useless concession. No one cares about 100% when 99.9% is just as good. Begging for certainty is just an extension of Pascal's Wager and that's fallacious.
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I don't disagree--i am fine with making decisions based on probabilities. I was just answering the question posed.
 
stanfr said:
I don't disagree--i am fine with making decisions based on probabilities. I was just answering the question posed.
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Were you? Honestly I only just dropped into this thread but what I read seemed more like you stating your philosophy. If I might paraphrase you're basically saying: "I concede that there's no certainty and to maintain the integrity of my position I must include it" almost as a caveat ( Resume called it "provisionally" which works just as well). While that's a smart thing to keep in mind it doesn't mean anything because certainty is irrelevant, all that matters is the evidence (usually evidence is empirical in nature as turingtest I believe was saying).

So with that having been said, how did you think you were answering the question?

Also another non sequitur here is that you said you're fine with making decisions based on probabilities...there's no other way you can do it you know. If things were certain then there is no decision to make, it would be deterministic.
 
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stanfr said:
So, you never rely on your emotions? When chosing a spouse/companion, you ask them to fill out questionaires and then run the answers through a statistical database? I find that hard to believe.
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What? I mean, really- what? What does my choosing a spouse have to do with science? (And, no, I didn't make her fill out a questionnaire) What I said was, if I were doing science, I would, as much as possible, discard emotion; that's what the method is for. There's a place for emotion, and there's a place for science; but they're not the same place.
 
turingtest said:
What? I mean, really- what? What does my choosing a spouse have to do with science? (And, no, I didn't make her fill out a questionnaire) What I said was, if I were doing science, I would, as much as possible, discard emotion; that's what the method is for. There's a place for emotion, and there's a place for science; but they're not the same place.
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...

You obviously haven't had sex in a laboratory.
 
Lowpro said:
Were you? Honestly I only just dropped into this thread but what I read seemed more like you stating your philosophy. If I might paraphrase you're basically saying: "I concede that there's no certainty and to maintain the integrity of my position I must include it" almost as a caveat ( Resume called it "provisionally" which works just as well). While that's a smart thing to keep in mind it doesn't mean anything because certainty is irrelevant, all that matters is the evidence (usually evidence is empirical in nature as turingtest I believe was saying).

So with that having been said, how did you think you were answering the question?

Also another non sequitur here is that you said you're fine with making decisions based on probabilities...there's no other way you can do it you know. If things were certain then there is no decision to make, it would be deterministic.
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No, you are mistaken on the last part. Even if it is a given, you can still decide, you can make the 'incorrect' decision if you so chose.
And your paraphrase is not what I was saying. All I was saying is that I keep an open mind. I can come to a reasonable conclusion based on my experience and the evidence, but that doesn't preclude me from beiong open to other possibilities. You may see that as bet-hedging--but that's not how i see it--sorry!
 
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turingtest said:
What? I mean, really- what? What does my choosing a spouse have to do with science? (And, no, I didn't make her fill out a questionnaire) What I said was, if I were doing science, I would, as much as possible, discard emotion; that's what the method is for. There's a place for emotion, and there's a place for science; but they're not the same place.
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Bingo! That's exactly my point, thanks for making it for me. The assumption made by others above in response to the OP is that religion must be science or it is worthless. You have correctly indicated that is not the case. And mind you, I am most certainly NOT religious.
Now, I must bow out aty least for now. I don't know how you folks keep up with these threads. You must all be independently wealthy or have real easy jobs...:(
 
stanfr said:
Bingo! That's exactly my point, thanks for making it for me. The assumption made by others above in response to the OP is that religion must be science or it is worthless. You have correctly indicated that is not the case. And mind you, I am most certainly NOT religious.
Now, I must bow out aty least for now. I don't know how you folks keep up with these threads. You must all be independently wealthy or have real easy jobs...:(
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Yeah, I think I'd leave on that note too.
 
Lowpro said:
My closest example to a proof of something akin to God is probably when I was in my High School English Class... a girl in class had a seizure and fell out of her desk, convulsing on the ground and split her head open. .. More blood for the blood God I say!
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I'd nom this if it didn't make me feel so ashamed.
:D
 
A few years back I saw this Mathematical proof for God.

0+0+0+0 = 0
(1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1) =
1+(-1+1)+(-1+1) =
1+0+0 = 1

The point was that something can be created from nothing.
I've heard of a similar proof using infinities.
 
IIIClovisIII said:
A few years back I saw this Mathematical proof for God.

0+0+0+0 = 0
(1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1) =
1+(-1+1)+(-1+1) =
1+0+0 = 1

The point was that something can be created from nothing.
I've heard of a similar proof using infinities.
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If something can be created from nothing, then there is no NEED of a god to explain the origin of the universe.
 
IIIClovisIII said:
A few years back I saw this Mathematical proof for God.

0+0+0+0 = 0
(1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1) =
1+(-1+1)+(-1+1) =
1+0+0 = 1

The point was that something can be created from nothing.
I've heard of a similar proof using infinities.
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Between the second and third line, you let three 1's disappear. I've seen far more impressive "proofs" of 0 = 1. Though the algebraic ones usually involve sneakily dividing by zero at some point.
 
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