Evidence and the Supernatural
Offline In response to Caposkia's request, I've started this thread in the hopes that the conversation will actually progress somewhere.
The topic of this conversation is very simple.
- show me evidence for the existence of a spiritual world, basically, any world other than this one.
- evidence for the existence of a "soul."
- existence of some "creator" or "higher power."
etc.
I am pretty lenient on what is evidence: refer to a scientific journal with an article discussing evidence for the supernatural (even theist websites are okay, but it better be good. Not AIG), some aspect of nature or life that requires an outside force, valid philosophical argument, and even anecdotal evidence.
Oh, if I start seeing stereotypical, lame arguments like the fine tuning argument, every painting has a painter, appeal to fear or guilt, argument from morality, argument from faith, I'm going to be royally pissed.
I hope I have made this clear.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
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. You say no and claim that I'm not paying attention to facts. You then say that while the responses to love and emotions can be measured the emotions themselves can only be felt aka repeating yourself.
Ah. So there's something to understand, then? I was led to believe that those unworthy of Saving (with a capital "S", no less) were the intended targets of the parables. You're softening it slightly to say that the audience wasn't going to understand anyway. But is there something to understand, or are they specifically meant to confuse?
Yes! You're comparing a measurable force with something that has never been measured! If there was a "God force" that we could measure, I wouldn't even be arguing with you.
That's not true at all. Gravity is a force, and it's also a property of mass in space-time. The whole point of General Relativity is to describe what gravity IS.
But those examples are not repeatable. I can show you the behaviour of gravity over and over again whenever you want. Any time. Now? How about now? Gravity still works. You have examples of one time that the spiritual is said to have affected the physical, and you can't repeat it.
That's why I say the comparison between the two is silly. If I told you I had psychic powers, and that I demonstrated them when you weren't around, and that I won't ever demonstrate them while you're around, but you should believe me anyway, would you believe me? I wouldn't. It's a ridiculous claim to make.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
The situation in the stories from what I understand is that the information Jesus had to share was in a way dangerous to him. If the people imediately understood it, it's my understanding that he would have been crucified much sooner than he was. No one was suppose to teach the way he was teaching and with the authority he taught with. It was better for people not to understand it right away because he knew he needed more time before he was crucified.
However, the Bible said Jesus died for the WORLD, not for the special people or the chosen ones. To say that he died for the world would imply literally every human being. The idea that the stories were for those who were "unworthy of Saving" doesn't coenside with Jesus' teachings and purpose. If that were the case, then you'd have to logically conclude that for Jesus to even tell stories in parables to them was a waste of time and completely pointless.
There is something to understand in those stories. Some of them are explained.
technically... there is. However, it's difficult to measure because it's not a constant effect like gravity. God chooses when and how to use his power and when not to, therefore, there'd really be no way to:
1. predict when it was going to happen
2. know what it was going to do
and understanding the God of the Bible as described in the Bible, his power would be beyond our comprehension, therefore:
3. It would max out any means of measurement we would be able to construct to measure it.
ok, God is a force.
But what IS it? I'll ask you the same questions everyone asked me about God.
What does it look like?
What's it made of?
That's because the effects of gravity are constant. It is so because gravity doesn't have an intelligence to decide to stop or start.
The only way of "measuring" God's power or studying it is the same way we do with Earthquakes. Wait till after it happens, then gather the information. You look at the history of "God sightings" as some would call it and peice the information together. The effects of God's work seems to be consistent. The focuses of constants are a wide range.
Why would you assume that God will only show his power when you're not around? It's my understanding that you've witnessed the effects of God. You just haven't either noticed it yet, or understood it yet. Same as when I used wind as an example. Just because you didn't feel it doesn't mean it didn't happen or that there was no wind.
I see you are still referring to that really stupid example of the wind, caposkia.
If we cannot feel the wind it means it is having negligible effect. So if you want to argue an analogy with God, it means you are saying that the reason we cannot perceive him is because he is having no perceivable effect. Therefore there is no reason to suppose he exists.
We certainly see nothing which unambigously could only be a manifestation of God. It is such a contrast with events described in the Bible, which if they occurred today as described there, before a wide audience, would be very significant occurrences. But they don't. The best you can do is point to reports of things which at best are mildly unusual, but not inherently and fundamentally inexplicable within a natural context.
Exactly what one would expect of handed-down stories which have a tendency to be elaborated when passed on, even without conscious intention to deceive, which is why the more spectacular reported manifestations of 'God' tend be in the distant past.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Technically, there are four observable forces, and "God" isn't one of them.
My exact problem with the God Force hypothesis is that it is unfalsifiable. That is, we could never show any statement about it to be false. Real things, about which one can form reasonable hypotheses, are subject to falsifiability. For instance.
I told you - it's a force. A force is a physical thing. A measurable, physical thing.
It's invisible.
Gravitons.
Does the God Force avoid scientists on purpose? If so, why?
Help me out, here. With an earthquake, we're measuring the movement of the earth. What are we measuring with the God Force?
But we'd have to have a hypothesis about those pieces of information. What's more likely, that we have an unmeasurable force, or that people are hallucinating? First of all, we have no reason to believe that there's a force to measure, because unlike the other forces, the God Force has never presented itself to one of the world's scientists for 400 years. Second, people hallucinate and lie all the time. They also experience false memories, remember things incorrectly, and are sometimes crazy. That's not so much a source of data.
Where? I can't see how you can make a statement about something that has never been measured.
Because this God Force has never shown up when anyone was measuring!
What I've noticed is irrelevant. When we model our universe, the math turns out pretty well without another force, so why is it that you think this God Force hides on purpose from scientists?
Yeah, but I was breathing, and I didn't die. That's pretty good evidence for terrestrially composed wind or air. That's measurable.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Or, it's so minimal at the time you just don't notice, but if you were pointed to the effect, you would notice.
Also, many times when people don't want to experience something or want to believe it was something else, they can easily do that to. Usually those are to more noticeable affects.
It's a psychological thing. Look it up.
Technically you're wrong here. I of course have not investigated the occurances myself, but there are reports around the world of Chrisitians spiritually healing people and doing all the things that the Bible described that the followers would be able to do. According to reports, the "acts" are plausible. Read "The Next Christiandom"
It tends not to happen in the Northern Americas as much. The faith according to the book is growing much more in the South.
If you research the history of the scriptures, the people who told the stories were just as careful as the translators today as to not add their own "adjenda" or opinions to the stories. They would carefully say it as it was. I'm sure a few words changed here or there, but it's understood that nothing significant had been manipulated.
It's best understood by the fact that the stories all had individual authors and that if they were manipulated as you say, they would not flow with each other. There would be a ton of outlying information. That would at least be the... logical approach.
Could it be because the "God" force as you call it has a choice? If you want to measure my power... and I say, 'Uh... no', explain how you're going to measure it.
God wants you to build a relationship in him, not believe in him just because....
heheh... ok, if I used that approach with you guys on God, I'd have been laughed off the site.
wait... you know.. lemme try it.
What is God?
I told you, He's a spirit. His power has been experienced by many, but his force is beyond our comprehension and is not a constant therefore, is immeasureable, but experiencible.
eh... ok, slightly not ok to the physical sciences.
how about... what does he look like?
he's invisible
ok, what is he made of?
Spiritual energy
I don't know... I feel like that's not going to fly with the citizens of RRS.
I'll give you credit though, you definitely pulled hard on that one to bring out a hypothetical as an example. Unless of course you can show me a graviton. I mean, that's what many people want me to do to prove to them God actually exists. That is Spirit DNA of sorts.
I like your conclusion as well above. Because God is "unfalsifiable", that must mean he's not real.....wwwhich... would make him ultimately falsifiable by unfalsifiable standards... Which I don't think flies in the scientific world.
One reason could be the Bible verse, "you should not tempt the Lord your God"
beyond that, he wants to build a relationship with you, not just say *poof* here I am. Part of building that relationship would be to persue Him.
Could be any number of things. Probably focusing on statistical happenings and commonalities as well as what would coenside with the personality of God.
Interesting statistics be it that there are many scientists... 45% to be more precise that actually believe in God. A few discovered God through their studies. This would lead me to believe that "the God Force" Has in fact presented itself to many of the world's scientists in the last 400 years.
Also, sure people lie and hallucinate all the time. Ask any cop, there are tell tale signs and inconsistencies with a liar's story.
Also, hallucinations are either medically caused or can be detected in some way. That knocks those people out of the way. What of the ones that don't have the "right conditions" for hallucinations? How about group hallucinations with no drugs or medical contingencies? What about hallucinations around the world that strangely enough seem to have the same outcome and description? I'm sure you'll find something to explain them away, but it still doesn't hold water as far as outcome and consistencies from what I understand. (just critiquing)
As far as false memories, etc. I just finished reading a book called Phantoms in the Brain. It was interesting read and I would suggest it.
testimonies would be a good place to start for that one. I guess that leads into truth or lie, however, people's lives and the changes that occur can't stay hidden.
Why would he?
What you've noticed is irrelevant!!! If so, then we need not go further.
moving on..
I think as far as the God Force hiding on scientists, I've already clarified.
I didn't say that the wind was not measurable. I said you didn't notice. That was the point.
So God chooses to never, ever be measurable. Ever. In 400 years of measuring (including Newton's desperate attempts). That's more like a policy than a choice.
Presumably God told you that.
No you wouldn't, because gravity is measurable. How many times do I have to say it?
That's because "spiritual energy" isn't measurable.
I can't show you an electron, either. You figure those don't exist? We just want evidence. Evidence is measurable.
No. The assertion that God is real is unfalsifiable, because God defies description, and is unmeasurable.
I don't know! I've never pretended to know anything about a magical creature before!
Okay, so the nature of this mystical subjective happening that I'd have to go through to sense God (and not Vishnu or Ba'al, I suppose) defies measurement and depends entirely on my field of attention? I have to be noticing the workings of an otherwise unmeasurable ... something?
How does that differ from someone who has just convinced themselves of something, and are wrong? For instance, if someone experiences a connection with Vishnu.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
God usually has sound reason for doing stuff. What would be the reason for him to "flex his muscles" just so that a skeptical scientist can measure it?
It's in the Bible.
Proabably the same amount of times I have to tell you it's only measureable because its' a constant and cannot choose to stop.
Or we don't have the means to measure it. There's a difference.
All I did here was ask of you exactly what everyone was asking of me. Basically you're telling be because I can't show you a graviton or an electron, they can't possibly exist... but the force that those non-existant entities create is measureable. I never said God couldn't be measured, it's most likely beyond our means AND He can choose when to use His energy and how much of it to use. Which would logically make measuring His energy virtually impossible. Be it that God is understood to be powerful enough to create everything we know, it would also be logical to conclude that we'd never have the means to even begin to measure such power. You cannot logically conclude from lack of means that God is immeasureable and thus does not exist.
Also, another issue that keeps arising is all of our measurement is based on the physical. In order to measure gravity, you'd need to use the physical... probably a physical object to measure it's weight which in turn gives us an understanding of the pull gravity has on the object. What if I asked you to measure the power of a single graviton... could you do it? If so, what is that measurement and how did you conclude that?
I will add... "by our own means."
Therefore, you cannot conclude logically anything about God at this point. You've even already concluded that he's magical when really it could be just that you don't understand His power.
That starts really diving into the spiritual realm and how that all works. It is entirely possible that someone experienced a connection with a spiritual being and either assumed it was Vishnu or it could have claimed to be such. Worship of "false gods" doesn't mean those spirits don't exist.
Since I noticed something that hadn't been concluded properly....
How about granting the scientist the ability to determine whether or not to follow the gods precepts? Allowing the scientist to measure gods "muscles" would allow the scientist to believe in gods existance, granting the scientist the "free will" to choose whether to follow god or not to.
Which was compiled and written by man.
By your own argument, it's only a constant because god chooses it to be. God could microscopically change that constant, thereby changing all of physics, and proving his existance, without making enough of an impact to adversely affect his creation.
Only if it exists. There is nothing to suggest that it does, and everything to suggest that it doesn't.
I didn't see any new material in the remainder of the post to deal with, so I leave it here.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Might as well add that we most definitely DO measure stuff that varies, all the time, even earthquakes. Many, many instruments not ony record continuously any phenomenon that is at all measureable or observable, we have instruments that measure the rate of change.
We have Terabytes, nay petabytes of more-or-less continuous recordings of many phenomena of interest. So the claim we can only measure something that doesn't vary is absurd, even for caposkia. It really demonstrates he has no understanding of anything worth a pile of dog-shit.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
You're illustrating my problem, here. You know about God, despite the fact that we have no way to construct actual knowledge about Him.
That's not how I conclude that God probably does not exist. The way I conclude that God does not probably exist is that God is one possible construct of the unknown, which could be constructed an infinite number of ways, given that it is unknown. (For instance, God could live in a stone castle in one version, and a crystal palace in another). Since an infinite number of possibilities exist for these scenarios, the odds of your specific version being true approach zero.
I would never say that God does not exist, full stop. I would also never say that about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
That's probably a bad example you've chosen, considering a graviton is a mathematical construct. How would we involve the non-physical in our discussion? What do we know about the non-physical?
Yes, by our own means, God is unmeasurable. God is still unfalsifiable by His vague presentation, however. It is impossible given any means to falsify the hypothesis that God exists. That's a pretty good indication that you're dealing with something that has a shaky ontology. If you can't define what you mean to say exists, then it's difficult to talk about its existence in any reasonable way.
I said "magical" because you claim He subverts the laws of physics whenever He wants, but only when nobody's looking. It's a claim of magic. It's also comedic in its implication. (Since He only seems to do it when nobody's looking, I mean.)
I don't even know why we need logic for this conversation anyway. It's not like you could "prove" that God was male, despite that continuing assumption.
But what evidence do you have that convinces you of that possibility? Why would you consider it reasonable that a spirit exists? Because someone told you? Because it just is?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
God wants you to build a relationship in him, not believe in him just because...
Are you kidding me? If you really read the topic, you'd notice that the reference was focused on gravity, which is a constant. Gravity was being used in comparison because we cannot see it, we cannot hear it, we have no way of holding it or looking at it, yet it exists and we know it exists because it affects us.
for your response however...
This is because we know the physical source... and the source is physical. Do we know the source of God's power? or where God is for that matter? Do we know that he's going to affect us from within the Earth, or from the sky?
through eye-witness or personal accounts just as the rest of history was portrayed to us.
God wants to build a relationship with you, not make you believe in him just because...
So you have evidence that it does not exist? Yes that's proving a negative, but by your own words, you're claiming it.
Eyewitness and personal accounts that they put off writing for years until Paul wrote his epistles. Were they building a backstory for his Christ or correcting his errors?
Interesting thing about God's relationship with man - Man had to provide both sides.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin