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jagatai
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21 Apr 2011, 11:47 am

Some Thoughts on Why We Need Proof

I have a friend who explained that the difficult hurdle that he had to overcome when he became a christian was the need to have FAITH that a god exists. His argument was that there simply isn't any proof and one must believe despite the absence of evidence. For some people, it seems that faith - specifically a belief in a thing regardless of a lack of proof - is an acceptable foundation for a belief. Some even seem to think there is something praiseworthy in a person who can believe in a thing for which there is no evidence.

This doesn't work for me. I need something testable and measurable. I can't say with any absolute certainty that a god does not exist, but I also cannot simply accept the idea that we were created and ruled over by some sentient being since there is not the slightest evidence for this hypothesis. How can we know we have the right answer except by using whatever intellectual tools we have available to work out the answer? To use a Christian metaphor, Isn't relying on faith taking a serious risk that we are being led by the devil? If we assume there is a god of good and a god of evil, how do we know that the teachings of religious leaders are not guided by evil?

Our best and only option is to rely on proofs that can be worked out and understood by anyone with the willingness to think through the problem. The above mentioned friend once said to me that he personally didn't see anything wrong with homosexuality but since god forbids it, it must be wrong and he just needs to understand his religion better. I think this is where blind faith promotes evil. It begins with an ideological position and then constructs whatever rationalization it can to promote that position.

The only ethical approach is to think for yourself and to require real evidence for an intellectual position. To rely on faith arrogantly assumes that whatever notion appeals to you must be correct. We need proof to know we are not adopting a system of beliefs out of personal preference or convenience. I would say that faith is not only NOT praiseworthy, it takes the risk of using an ideology to attack and punish anyone who doesn't agree with you.

If we use evidence as our guide to what is correct then all people have access to the tools that allow us to understand what is right and what is wrong. But if we rely on faith, religion can always be used as a weapon against us since religious laws are not testable or verifiable. If someone wants to sentence me to death for being an atheist, what recourse do I have if the laws are based on nothing more than some person's interpretation of old texts and traditions? If another person wants to kill a Christian for his beliefs, what recourse does the christian have?

We need proof. Anything else is irrelevant.


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DeaconBlues
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21 Apr 2011, 11:49 am

See, the problem with "proving" God's existence is that God says not to even try it...

Deuteronomy 6:16 wrote:
You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah.

(Massah was the place where the people cried out for water, fearing that God wouldn't provide for them; Moses was supposed to simply command a rock to give water, but he struck it with his staff instead, which annoyed God. Then the people cried for food. God caused manna to rise from the sand, with the instruction that it should be gathered before sunset, as it would turn to sand after that. They ate manna for a time, then complained because they wanted meat. God finally got fed up with all the whining, dropped a bunch of dead birds into the camp, then told the people that those who trusted Him should not eat the meat, but just the manna. Some of the people ate the meat, and died. God's response was. basically, "I told you not to do that...")

From one perspective, this might be a reason for an investigation of faith healing, or any other method of "proving" the existence of God, to fail - He's not going to let it succeed. Of course, from another perspective, it provides a convenient excuse when such testing fails. In essence, no effort to prove the existence or non-existence of God is going to change anyone's mind, either because God declines to produce obvious miracles any more (I mean, look at how the Hebrew tribes treated Him in the Pentateuch, when He did give them such miracles!), or because He isn't there in the first place. And since there's no way to demonstrate which of those propositions is the correct one...


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Vexcalibur
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21 Apr 2011, 1:33 pm

blunnet wrote:
Christian doctrine, from what I know of, would say that the healing would come out of pure faith, not from testing an idea or hypothesis, and given that doubt is a basic element when doing an experiment of an empirical nature, from that perspective, it wouldn't work. Now of course, the explanation isn't much of a satisfactory answer.

Doubt would be in those measuring the results. The christian groups praying for the limbs to regenerate would have faith.


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Magnus_Rex
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21 Apr 2011, 1:42 pm

The Bible proves God's existence, just as The Iliad proves the Greek Pantheon's existence. I don't understand your skepticism before such strong evidence!



ruveyn
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21 Apr 2011, 1:58 pm

Magnus_Rex wrote:
The Bible proves God's existence, just as The Iliad proves the Greek Pantheon's existence. I don't understand your skepticism before such strong evidence!


I suppose Lord of the Rings proves the existence of Middle Earth, the Elves, the Hobbits and the Dwarves.

ruveyn



Magnus_Rex
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21 Apr 2011, 3:20 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Magnus_Rex wrote:
The Bible proves God's existence, just as The Iliad proves the Greek Pantheon's existence. I don't understand your skepticism before such strong evidence!


I suppose Lord of the Rings proves the existence of Middle Earth, the Elves, the Hobbits and the Dwarves.

ruveyn


Precisely. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a very important meeting with Big Brother and the Minister for Magic.



techstepgenr8tion
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21 Apr 2011, 9:03 pm

Magnus_Rex wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Magnus_Rex wrote:
The Bible proves God's existence, just as The Iliad proves the Greek Pantheon's existence. I don't understand your skepticism before such strong evidence!


I suppose Lord of the Rings proves the existence of Middle Earth, the Elves, the Hobbits and the Dwarves.

ruveyn


Precisely. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a very important meeting with Big Brother and the Minister for Magic.

Literature creates its own sealed... univi?

Wouldn't it be funny if we were such a case...


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21 Apr 2011, 9:17 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
Magnus_Rex wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Magnus_Rex wrote:
The Bible proves God's existence, just as The Iliad proves the Greek Pantheon's existence. I don't understand your skepticism before such strong evidence!


I suppose Lord of the Rings proves the existence of Middle Earth, the Elves, the Hobbits and the Dwarves.

ruveyn


Precisely. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a very important meeting with Big Brother and the Minister for Magic.

Literature creates its own sealed... univi?

Wouldn't it be funny if we were such a case...

That was actually the case in Heinlein's last several novels, collectively called "World as Myth" and starting with "The Number of the Beast -". When someone writes a work of fiction, and enough people read the work. love the world, and fervently wish it were true, this process generates fictons, which bring that world into existence. Sometimes, one fictal universe can spawn another - in TNotB, when the characters wind up on board Lazarus Long's starship Dora, they know who Long is because they read about him in novels by their universe's Heinlein. Later, they find that Long also has dim memories, centuries old, of once reading a pulp magazine with a serialized story that was probably about the main characters. (They also visit Oz, have to face down the Grey Lensman, and fly low over Barsoom...)


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ArrantPariah
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19 Mar 2013, 12:11 pm

Here is some proof. :P

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWT19QPZ6KE[/youtube]



Uri
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10 Apr 2013, 8:31 pm

MR_BOGAN wrote:
I don't believe in god. I like the idea of god but I simply don't believe god exists.


I don't think that God is something that really exists outside our minds. The way I see it God is only something virtual, it's something that only exists in the imagination. The mind's eye is God. It is consciousness.

I also don't think that there is a personal God who answers individual prayers and stuff. Also the vast majority of scientists agree that there is no personal God who answers prayers.

Albert Einstein also did not believe in an anthropomorphic, personal God. He said he believed in the pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza, but not in a personal god, a belief he criticized.



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10 Apr 2013, 9:38 pm

Your finger fits perfectly into your nostril

Checkmate, atheists


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10 Apr 2013, 10:26 pm

I am a Daoist, so I don't believe in a God.

However, I will never dissuade anyone from doing so if it makes a positive impact in their life and helps explain things in a way they understand. Many people think Dao is utter nonsense. I never try to convince anyone to agree with Daoist views because I don't think it's a prerequisite to being a decent person.

There are some Daoist groups which have deities. I don't agree with their point of view so I don't practice it. But I don't insult them since they don't condemn me for not agreeing with them. To each his own.

Religion only becomes an issue in my eyes when it's used to interfere with someone's life, such as denying one their personal rights or as a means to justify violence, or forced on another person, etc.

Live and let live.