Why it is silly to look for evidence of God

[arfa brane]

It's my opinion that it's the theists that are working themselves up over nothing. Literally.

How about trying to prove that God is "nothing", then prove that you are "something", and so, you aren't God?

No takers? No surprise there. Obviously it's a lot easier to just trot out a bunch of definitions. You would first need to define "nothing" accurately, and then "something" likewise. I guarantee that you can't do this.

[spidergoat]

That's often not good enough for them.

[wynn]

That's often not good enough for them.

So?

[wynn]

How about trying to prove that God is "nothing", then prove that you are "something", and so, you aren't God?

No takers? No surprise there. Obviously it's a lot easier to just trot out a bunch of definitions. You would first need to define "nothing" accurately, and then "something" likewise. I guarantee that you can't do this.

It's not clear what your issue here is.
Can you restate it?

[arfa brane]

It's not clear what your issue here is.
Can you restate it?

There isn't any "issue". It's fairly simple: if everyone is getting "worked up about nothing", prove that God is, in fact "nothing".

??

[wynn]

"Worked up about nothing" is just a phrase.
What I meant by it is that they get "worked up unnecessarily."
Thanks for pointing this out.

[spidergoat]

So?

So... the need for atheists to speak out about it.

[arfa brane]

I can tell this thread has gone from nowhere to nowhere. It isn't going to get anywhere either.

But it might provide a platform for the atheists or theists to get worked up unneccesarily. About nothing, because that's what God is--nothing usual at least.

To recap: "God -- not your usual".

[Yazata]

We don't fear something that doesn't exist.

Sometimes the people who believe that things that don't exist do exist can be pretty scary. Like when they drive airliners into tall buildings and stuff. That can ruin your whole morning.

But yeah, I agree that the idea of searching for God doesn't cause me any anxiety. Like I said earlier, I'm not really searching for God at all, since I don't believe that a God exists for me to find. (Searching for something I don't think exists would be kind of a fool's errand in my view.) But I do entertain the larger and more general possibility that some kind of transcendental realms or beings might exist. (Maybe this universe really is 'the Matrix'.) So this kind of thread represents an interesting opportunity for me to poke a little deeper into the epistemology of religion, into the physics/metaphysics distinction, and stuff like that.

[arfa brane]

God is not religion.

[wellwisher]

There is a phenomena of the unconscious mind called projection. The unconscious projects, loosely analogous to a subjective movie, onto reality. What we see is a composite that is both sensory and imaginary. In my opinion, there is a connection between projection and religious experience. It is real, but not in the way it is presented by Hollywood.

A good experiment that can allow one to experience this mind phenomena is to have someone drop you off in the woods at night, alone, and then drive off. Lions and tigers and bears, Oh my!! What will happen in many people is some anxiety will appear and the imagination will become active. The shadow near the big old tree becomes a harmful animal. The imagination can play tricks, resulting in a projection of one's fears onto an otherwise uneventful environment. Don't take my word for it, try it. If you fear Jason from Friday the 13th he might be projected. It does not have to be a visual affect, but can be a feeling Jason is there.

Based on the type of projection that is being generated, one can sort of map where in the psyche the affect is projecting from. God type projections come from the deepest parts of the psyche.

This is what was taught at the beginning of Christianity but in a different way. The holy spirit was connected to the inner man. God was no longer on the outside in the environment, but might still appear as a projection for those, who are unconscious of their inner man.

If you look at eastern religions, they look inside for their relgious goals. Western tends to project outward because we are an extroverted type culture. It is easier to say that apparition is a ghost or a spirit than to think it comes from inside.

The atheists have their own projections, and it is usually angry/evil in nature. They attribute this evil to the world of religion. They can't see the stereo type is out of touch with full reality, because it is a projection of something they need to make conscious. But since they assume all is outside they never seem to learn that they are projecting the own unconscious psyche.

[gmilam]

The atheists have their own projections, and it is usually angry/evil in nature. They attribute this evil to the world of religion.

No. I attribute "evil" to human beings.

Religion (or lack thereof) appears to have no discernible effect on evil.

[spidergoat]

We aren't the ones projecting evil spirits, devils, demons, and angels. We are blissfully free from such delusions! (But we might very well have other delusions, I don't know).

[Grumpy]

"If atheists would just consider the usual definitions of "God" (notably: omnipotent, omniscient, all-attractive, all-wise, the Supreme, the source/origin, the controller etc.), they'd see that there is nothing to fear neither from God, nor from theists."

Non-sense, it has been the ACTIONS of theists that has created the most misery and death in this world for hundreds and thousands of years. Ever actually read the Old Testament? If you weren't a Jew you had a lot to fear from the Jews(slaughter of all men and boys over puberty, ditto all adult women(except the virgins, they got to be sex slaves or chattel), they even slaughtered all the animals and salted the fields). Of course, the Inquisition concentrated on repaying the favor. Adolf was a Catholic in good standing, but he took his antisemitism straight from Martin Luther(Google Martin Luther's Dirty Little Book).

[Grumpy]

Wynn
"I do know some things about approaching this topic that you don't. "
I doubt that. You have no idea what I know about the subject(but I will endevor to correct your ignorance in future posts)

[Techne]

I don't even know what "the usual definitions of God" are, or why we should accept them. (It seems like an implicit demand that Christian theology be accepted a-priori.)

Well, classical theism is affirmed by Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Pagans thinkers such as Aquinas, Maimonides, Avicenna and Plotinus respectively. Classical theism affirms at least the following:
1) If God exists, God exists necessarily, in other words, God could not have not existed.
2) If God exists then He has no limitations, God is not limited in perfection, in power, in goodness and in knowledge.
3) If God exists then nothing can come into being or continue to happen without God creating it and sustaining it in existence.

There are various arguments (or proofs if you want) that attempt to establish the existence of God. Aquinas' 5 ways for example use change (1st), causality (2nd), contingency (3rd), degrees of being and transcendentals (4th) and final causality (5th) as premises in proofs that can in principle demonstrate the existence of something that just is necessary being itself (3rd), whose essence is its existence (2nd), that is intelligence analogously speaking (5th), that just is good (4th) and is purely actual (1st) and that is what classical theists call God. If such arguments are successful then it just logically follows that every contingent being that has ever existed and will ever exist is evidence for God.

The definition of 'God' that people are talking about here seems to be approaching a 'Matrix'-style 'brain in a vat' situation. That's where all of our possible experience is simply... fake... a simulation, not real. It's an illustration of the bigger and far more ancient problem of skepticism. How can we ever tell the difference between truth and falsity if every possible piece of evidence might itself be false? (To a certain extent, the whole history of modern post-medieval Western philosophy is a giant meditation on the problem of skepticism.)

I think you are right. And I think part of the problem is a mechanistic view of matter and a Humean view of causation.

Science provides us with a pretty good means of producing naturalistic accounts of natural events, by linking them together causally.

I don't see how this is a problem for theism really. Of course that depends on how you define "science" and what exactly you mean by "naturalistic" and "natural events". A theist may use science as simply to mean knowledge. Knowledge gained via our senses (empirical knowledge) and knowledge gained via intellectual abstraction all contribute to the theist's view of reality. To the theist a naturalistic account may mean that the existence of something that just is necessary being itself, whose essence is its existence, that is intelligence analogously speaking, that just is good and is purely actual is perfectly compatible with explaining and having naturalistic accounts of natural events. Causality for the theist may also be more complete as it include perhaps Aristotle's four causes, powers and the distinction between per se and per accidens causes etc. All these things may then form part of a pretty natural explanation of reality for the theist. Soit really depends how define your terms.

If a theist account doesn't add anything to that, then it becomes kind of superfluous from a physical point of view and can be dropped. That's what's happened over the last few hundred years as natural theology's receded.

Indeed. This appears to be accurate ever since Aristotelian metaphysics have been replaced with mechanistic views of reality.

[aaqucnaona]

Hey guys, nobody seems to have noticed my
So what test > relevance > falsiability posts [24, 41, 45]
to show that all gods that matter to us CAN we tested and disproven to a fair degree of certainty.

[michael_taylor]

If atheists would just consider the usual definitions of "God" (notably: omnipotent, omniscient, all-attractive, all-wise, the Supreme, the source/origin, the controller etc.), they'd see that there is nothing to fear neither from God, nor from theists.

That doesn't actually make sense though.


Just because a theist might say god is all-attractive, (while simultaneously believing any of the many things in their particular holy book which most people find horrific and repulsive) it does not follow that the things they might do in it's name are universally good.

It isn't about whether the definitions have been considered, not even slightly.

Either you're being intentionally deceptive or you are obtuse to the point of retarded.

[wynn]

So... the need for atheists to speak out about it.

Sure.

I'm not suggesting that atheists be silent on the matter. But I do think there are better ways to communicate about the problems they have with theists.


For example suppose an atheist is approached by a boastful born-again Christian in the street, or has such a relative.
What can happen in such situations is that the atheists goes on a long course of trying to scientifically prove to that born-again that he is wrong. What ensues is that there is a lot of hot blood on both sides and nobody changes their mind.

An alternative may be that the atheist makes the argument that "if God is in control, then all is well" and then no matter what the born-again may say, the atheist insist in the same argument "if God is in control, then all is well".

I'm curious as to what would happen.

[wynn]

That doesn't actually make sense though.


Just because a theist might say god is all-attractive, (while simultaneously believing any of the many things in their particular holy book which most people find horrific and repulsive) it does not follow that the things they might do in it's name are universally good.

Nobody suggested that kind of conclusion.

Either you're being intentionally deceptive or you are obtuse to the point of retarded.

You just don't read what is said.