A mortal God?

[Mike]

God has shown none of that.

to you.

Our faith is not logical or implementing logic to draw one's conclusion... to you.

There is not enough evidence of the Christian God shown... to you.

It's all impacted by our perspectives, relatively. I've said before that it would be best if you would preface your comments by isolating them to your own observation rather than sweeping generalizations or matters of "fact". I see you're still working on that. ;)

C.S. Lewis said one of the evidences of the Holy Spirit changing you is when you (almost instantly) see things you've never seen before, see things in a way you've never seen them before. I'm not surprised when I see you describe what you read in scripture and pile up accusations against God. I would say your veil is still down.

Most Christians who have truly thought through their faith have settled on what we believe being the most logical explanation for what they can observe. Combining scripture with archeology, sociology, our natural world, etc. can in fact lead a very intelligent person to the logical conclusion that (first) God does exist, and (second) He did reveal Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

You haven't seen enough evidence to convince you. Okay. But others have different stories with different experiences & evidences. They might also be willing to consider the logical conclusion when connecting the dots.

 

[stovebolts]

I"m just sitting back laughing while I read all this stuff about things being based on assumptions That the world is billions of years old is based on assumptions lol! And the Big Bang?... Yup, Assumptions.

Carry on now... I was never here

 

[Atothetheist]

to you.

Our faith is not logical or implementing logic to draw one's conclusion... to you.

There is not enough evidence of the Christian God shown... to you.

It's all impacted by our perspectives, relatively. I've said before that it would be best if you would preface your comments by isolating them to your own observation rather than sweeping generalizations or matters of "fact". I see you're still working on that. ;)

C.S. Lewis said one of the evidences of the Holy Spirit changing you is when you (almost instantly) see things you've never seen before, see things in a way you've never seen them before. I'm not surprised when I see you describe what you read in scripture and pile up accusations against God. I would say your veil is still down.

Most Christians who have truly thought through their faith have settled on what we believe being the most logical explanation for what they can observe. Combining scripture with archeology, sociology, our natural world, etc. can in fact lead a very intelligent person to the logical conclusion that (first) God does exist, and (second) He did reveal Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

You haven't seen enough evidence to convince you. Okay. But others have different stories with different experiences & evidences. They might also be willing to consider the logical conclusion when connecting the dots.

Personal expierence is highly HIGHLY overrated. People mistake things all of the time.

You are right though, he hasn't... To me. He probably won't... To me. And I am sorry, but any system which relies heavily in personal expierence, is a fishy system to me.

Personal, or anecdotal evidence.... Is just that, personal. They are not going to convince anybody but the person who had the expierence.

..... One might be aquainted with those subjects, but I highly doubt, if this person were to master all of them, he would be a believer.

90% of scientists, reject the God hypothesis completely, or doubt it. ( some are agnostic.)

The people who should be able to see him working, creating miracles, or setting up the laws, reject him as a hypothesis.

I do not speak objectively, I am not arrogant enough to. Nor will I ever say we will not find evidence for a God, and unlikely still, evidence it is of you Particular Deity.

I do not have information that is denied to you, and I won't claim to.

 

[Atothetheist]

I"m just sitting back laughing while I read all this stuff about things being based on assumptions That the world is billions of years old is based on assumptions lol! And the Big Bang?... Yup, Assumptions.

Carry on now... I was never here

.................... You must not know that much science. I can't stand people who ridicule science, without even knowing the thing they are ridiculing.

Read any science journal, you will find proof.

:o:o:o you're igronace of cosmology, and geology is shocking, but I do not claim to know better than you, and I think that at somethings you are better than me, so don't take this as an offensive comment.

You just don't know the thinking behind science, nor the evidence presented for the two propositions.

 

[Grazer]

.................... You must not know that much science. I can't stand people who ridicule science, without even knowing the thing they are ridiculing.

Read any science journal, you will find proof.

:o:o:o you're igronace of cosmology, and geology is shocking, but I do not claim to know better than you, and I think that at somethings you are better than me, so don't take this as an offensive comment.

You just don't know the thinking behind science, nor the evidence presented for the two propositions.

I got to go with Atothetheist on this one. The evidence of the age of the earth and the universe having a beginning with a big bang is very very strong. Science has its assumptions in that the universe is intelligible and can be understood by us (you won't be a scientist for 5 minutes without this belief) but any assumptions made are tested thoroughly then have to be scrutinized by many other people. Doesn't make science perfect but it has self-checking mechanisms built in.

For those mocking the big bang from a religious perspective, Arno Penzias, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics with Robert Wilson for their discovery of the background microwave radiation, has said this in an interview:

The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms and the bible as a whole.

 

[Atothetheist]

I got to go with Atothetheist on this one. The evidence of the age of the earth and the universe having a beginning with a big bang is very very strong. Science has its assumptions in that the universe is intelligible and can be understood by us (you won't be a scientist for 5 minutes without this belief) but any assumptions made are tested thoroughly then have to be scrutinized by many other people. Doesn't make science perfect but it has self-checking mechanisms built in.

For those mocking the big bang from a religious perspective, Arno Penzias, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics with Robert Wilson for their discovery of the background microwave radiation, has said this in an interview:

The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms and the bible as a whole.

The last quote is an example of post diction.

The person creditted for the Big Bang theory was a Monk.

 

[Drew]

First, you have to prove there is a God,....

Not that simple.

First, it is, of course, entirely possible that God factually exists, and yet that existence is not subject to conventional "proofs".

Second, the case for God can be legitimately argued thus: "Which position, God or no God, makes better sense of the way the world is?" In other words, we have to have a level playing field, as it were. It is not correct to begin the debate with the presumption that God does not exist, and then insist that only if powerful evidence for God is presented, can we legitimately conclude God exists. That would be like me saying "unless you can prove there is no God, we should conclude He exists."

Two final points:

1. I am not necessarily suggesting you are making the mistakes I am describing;
2. I am aware of the Occam's razor argument, and am prepared to respond to that.

 

[Atothetheist]

Not that simple.

First, it is, of course, entirely possible that God factually exists, and yet that existence is not subject to conventional "proofs".

Second, the case for God can be legitimately argued thus: "Which position, God or no God, makes better sense of the way the world is?" In other words, we have to have a level playing field, as it were. It is not correct to begin the debate with the presumption that God does not exist, and then insist that only if powerful evidence for God is presented, can we legitimately conclude God exists. That would be like me saying "unless you can prove there is no God, we should conclude He exists."

Two final points:

1. I am not necessarily suggesting you are making the mistakes I am describing;
2. I am aware of the Occam's razor argument, and am prepared to respond to that.

Well, the world looks to me like there isn't a God, and the until there is Scientific, testable, observable, corraborated, and peerreviewed evidence that there is, I will continue to disbelieve.

Go ahead to your rebuttal.

Let me make something clear:

I am in no way, attacking Christianity, by critiqueing the God Hypothesis, I am attacking a Deity, not your diety, if I am wrong in this statement, I'll try to PM my rebuttals.

Two, if it seems like I am patronizing you, I am dumbing down my posts for the other theists that might not understand what we are talking about, unless I make it simple. I am not considering you stupid, just trying to enable more people to understand the discussion.

 

[Grazer]

Well, the world looks to me like there isn't a God,

That's a very honest statement (I genuinely mean that) but science cannot comment on whether there is a God so you won't ever get your scientific, testable, observable, coraaborated, and peerreviewed evidence. Many Christians find evidence for God in the same evidence that you don't find him. Science will not decide this issue.

But all this reminds me of a quote by C.S. Lewis:

“If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe -no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside us as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that's just what we do find inside us.â€

This was an appeal to the moral law by Lewis but I like the architect analogy and it seemed relevant here.

 

[Atothetheist]

Well, the world looks to me like there isn't a God,

That's a very honest statement (I genuinely mean that) but science cannot comment on whether there is a God so you won't ever get your scientific, testable, observable, coraaborated, and peerreviewed evidence. Many Christians find evidence for God in the same evidence that you don't find him. Science will not decide this issue.

But all this reminds me of a quote by C.S. Lewis:

“If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe -no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside us as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that's just what we do find inside us.â€

This was an appeal to the moral law by Lewis but I like the architect analogy and it seemed relevant here.

The question of God is a scientific Question. It is a question about the reality we live in, and I assume God can make mircales happen, he can be observed and tested, thus providing evidence.

 

[Grazer]

The question of God is a scientific Question. It is a question about the reality we live in, and I assume God can make mircales happen, he can be observed and tested, thus providing evidence.

God cannot be observed and tested by the very definition of what a God is. Science can only deal with the naturalistic and material. His actions (i.e any miracle he does) can be tested (if such an experiment could be set up) but you wouldn't be testing God you'd be testing the effect of Gods actions. He'd have to become material in order to be testable and, if Christianity is correct, he did that approx 2000 years ago but that puts it in the realm of history not science. I think Stephen Jay Gould is absolute right when he says;

To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth million time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists. If some of our crowd have made untoward statements claiming that Darwinism disproves God, then I will find Mrs. McInerney and have their knuckles rapped for it (as long as she can equally treat those members of our crowd who have argued that Darwinism must be God's method of action). Science can work only with naturalistic explanations; it can neither affirm nor deny other types of actors (like God) in other spheres (the moral realm, for example).

Even if the "God question" was a scientific one, it seems that it hasn't been able to answer it as there are both Christian and atheist scientists using the same evidence. Science is neutral, its data/discoveries can be interpreted atheistically or theistically but it doesn't answer the question of whether there is a God and by its methods can never do so.

 

[Atothetheist]

God cannot be observed and tested by the very definition of what a God is. Science can only deal with the naturalistic and material. His actions (i.e any miracle he does) can be tested (if such an experiment could be set up) but you wouldn't be testing God you'd be testing the effect of Gods actions. He'd have to become material in order to be testable and, if Christianity is correct, he did that approx 2000 years ago but that puts it in the realm of history not science. I think Stephen Jay Gould is absolute right when he says;

To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth million time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists. If some of our crowd have made untoward statements claiming that Darwinism disproves God, then I will find Mrs. McInerney and have their knuckles rapped for it (as long as she can equally treat those members of our crowd who have argued that Darwinism must be God's method of action). Science can work only with naturalistic explanations; it can neither affirm nor deny other types of actors (like God) in other spheres (the moral realm, for example).

Even if the "God question" was a scientific one, it seems that it hasn't been able to answer it as there are both Christian and atheist scientists using the same evidence. Science is neutral, its data/discoveries can be interpreted atheistically or theistically but it doesn't answer the question of whether there is a God and by its methods can never do so.

Stephen Jay Gould was talking about a religion with no miracles.

From a miracle, we can see if it has a naturalistic cause, and if not, an alternativr cause, which give creadence to a God.

 

[Grazer]

Stephen Jay Gould was talking about a religion with no miracles.

From a miracle, we can see if it has a naturalistic cause, and if not, an alternativr cause, which give creadence to a God.

Not from the context of his previous paragraph:

Johnson is not a "scientific creationist" of Duane Gish's ilk—the "young earth" Biblical literalists who have caused so much political trouble of late, but whom we beat in the Supreme Court in 1987. He accepts the earth's great age and allows that God may have chosen to work via natural selection and other evolutionary principles (though He may also operate by miraculous intervention if and when He chooses). Johnson encapsulates his major insistence by writing: "In the broadest sense, a creationist is simply a person who believes that the world (and especially mankind) was designed, and exists for a purpose." Darwinism, Johnson claims, inherently and explicitly denies such a belief and therefore constitutes a naturalistic philosophy intrinsically opposed to religion.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/reviews/gould_darwin-on-trial.html

 

[stovebolts]

.................... You must not know that much science. I can't stand people who ridicule science, without even knowing the thing they are ridiculing.

Read any science journal, you will find proof.

:o:o:o you're igronace of cosmology, and geology is shocking, but I do not claim to know better than you, and I think that at somethings you are better than me, so don't take this as an offensive comment.

You just don't know the thinking behind science, nor the evidence presented for the two propositions.

ha ha, you assume once again without knowing or not knowing what I know And you assume I ridicule Science? :biglol There you go looking at me with your biased lense again. :waving

Scientists use assumptions... That is a fact. First thought that comes to my mind is equilibrium... I believe his name was Willard Libby? But what do I know?

I do not question Science. I question the assumptions of Science. I believe this to be fair. But to say that Science does not rely on assumptions is pure ignorance. This is why Science uses what they call hypothesis and a hypothesis can evolve or die. Not everything in Science is Fact at the offset.

Anyway, I think this topic should end as we don't need to pull the topic off course. I just found it rather humerus how the word assumption was being thrown around so heavily. It was almost hypocritical

 

[Drew]

90% of scientists, reject the God hypothesis completely, or doubt it. ( some are agnostic.)

This may be true, but it must be stated that even though science, as a discipline promotes certain desirable standards related to matters of "objectivity", scientists are still human beings.

And as human beings, scientists will be subject to the effects of tribalism - the motivation to identify themselves with a particular group and subtly demonize others outside that group. We all do this.

And in the world we live in today (in the west, at least) one of the notions that defines a scientific worldview is the idea that "religion is anti-scientific". So, I suggest, some scientists will glom onto that idea uncritically simply because this is part of the package of belonging to the scientist "tribe".

 

[Grazer]

Where have you got this 90% figure from?

 

[Drew]

The question of God is a scientific Question. It is a question about the reality we live in, and I assume God can make mircales happen, he can be observed and tested, thus providing evidence.

I believe you are assuming something here.

Do you agree that there things that could be factually true, yet not subject to "test and observation"?

I certainly do.

Is it possible that there exists other universes, entirely cut off from ours such that no information could possibly flow between those universes and ours? I believe the answer is "yes".

So this would be an example of a factual truth that is simply not subject to scientific investigation (I believe).

And I am confident of other examples. The bottom line is that one cannot rule out the truth of some hypothesis which has no scientific evidence to support it, if a reasonable case can be made that the nature of the claim itself prevents scientific investigation.

Another example: When someone kicks me in the shin, I experience a sharp, very real sensation of pain. However, science cannot make the case that I have this experience. Yes, science can show that when I am kicked in the shins, certain neurons are activated, and I engage in certain behaviours.

But, and this is the point - the nature of my internal experience of pain is such it is simply not accessible to anyone else to me, and therefore not really subject to scientific investigation (with its notions of testability, objective evidence, etc.)

But, I suggest, that the pain is still "real".

 

[Drew]

Well, the world looks to me like there isn't a God, and the until there is Scientific, testable, observable, corraborated, and peerreviewed evidence that there is, I will continue to disbelieve.

Of course, that is your right. But what we can challenge is this idea that unless the exsitence of God is "provable", the most reasonable conclusion is that He does not exist. I believe that this would be incorrect reasoning.

Two, if it seems like I am patronizing you, I am dumbing down my posts for the other theists that might not understand what we are talking about, unless I make it simple. I am not considering you stupid, just trying to enable more people to understand the discussion.

Fair enough - I empathize with the challenge you face. There are going to be a lot of people engaged in this debate, some with more knowledge, some with less. So I can accept what you say here. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Atothetheist]

This may be true, but it must be stated that even though science, as a discipline promotes certain desirable standards related to matters of "objectivity", scientists are still human beings.

And as human beings, scientists will be subject to the effects of tribalism - the motivation to identify themselves with a particular group and subtly demonize others outside that group. We all do this.

And in the world we live in today (in the west, at least) one of the notions that defines a scientific worldview is the idea that "religion is anti-scientific". So, I suggest, some scientists will glom onto that idea uncritically simply because this is part of the package of belonging to the scientist "tribe".

Science is competitive. It isn't a tribe, it is an all men for themselves type of deal. If one person proposes something, the other scientists will try their hardest to disprove it.

You are making drastic assumptions.

 

[Atothetheist]

Where have you got this 90% figure from?

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sci_relig.htm

Not only that, but a similar figure is reported on Talk Orgins.

And many many different sites as well.( Some I can't and won't link to, because they are biased and anti-Christian, but they seem to be in external sources to.)