No Evidence For God, Why Still Believe?

Why? Is “just because” any better of an explanation? “God” isn’t necessarily a man in the sky, you know.

Why can’t God be the cause of evolution? Our corporeal purpose is to evolve, to survive change, just as our mind form is to evolve, to survive change, beyond our corporeal form.

To be more precise;

Our corporeal purpose [empirically based] is to evolve, to survive change, just as our mind form is to evolve, to survive change, beyond our corporeal form.

Generally whatever is empirically based must be caused by something that is empirically- based.
The ultimate basis of the theists’ God is never empirical.
Logically one cannot conflate the two different basis.

Some theists claimed their God is empirical, e.g. the empirical bearded man in the sky.
If that is the case, then bring the evidence of an empirical bearded man in the sky to justify one’s claim.

Another counter argument is, according to Hume the grounds of ‘causation’ is psychological, i.e. customs, habits and constant conjunction. Try proving Hume wrong.
Therefore even if one can justify God as the ultimate cause, that is grounded on psychology.

The above are the reasons why God [the default] cannot be the absolute cause of evolution.

Let me remind you, Prismatic:

What did the last sentence say?

Wendy,
I do think God causes evolution.
As for Hume, he’s outdated by modern biology and cosmology. He didnot realize that the senses must reveal something real in order for us to survive. Yes the observer contributes to what is observed, but one would be amiss, solipsistic, to assume the observation is all there is. Hume flirted with solipsism. Communication among diverse minds has proved his claims to be spurious.

Note solipsism is a incoherent theory.
iep.utm.edu/solipsis/#H7

Hume did leave some gaps with his theory, nonetheless the psychological factors raised by Hume is still fact. It was Kant who closed the gap after his famous ‘Hume awoken me from my dogmatic slumber.’

Who and which minds? Any references to this point?

Ierrellus,

Perhaps it takes some brave souls in any time or era (do you really believe that THIS is the worst time in history?) to think that God did it; that is, if their thinking is based on investigation, examination, cognitive thinking and facts…not simply sentimentality and a need for some all-powerful entity or father figure to exist.

But what is so brave about automatically believing in a God?
What is so brave about letting go and “letting God” handle things?
Kind of foolish, don’t you think, capable of wreaking such havoc on the world?
What kind of evidence can we have for any type of God which we tend to believe in except for what our senses tell us or make us feel?

Think of all the tragedy, horror and destruction brought on by some of your same so-called brave souls because they seem to think and feel that God did it, or told them to do it, or they decided not to do something about it because they think and feel that a God would take care of it.

Do you believe in divine design because you believe in the kind of God which directly caused the universe and is omnipotent and omniscient? What if both directions are wrong?
What if it is something else which got it all moving?

It is so easy to dismiss religious claims by referring to the most toxic forms of religious fundamentalism as classic examples of belief in God. That’s the straw man most commonly used in arguments by atheists and agnostics. Face it, the God is dead or the God does not exist ideas are about a century old. These ideas do not address progressive religion as it has evolved and have not replaced the God belief with anything better. A second straw man is to reference outdated philosophy as revealing how brain/minds actually work. How about seeing religion and philosophy from the vantage point of the twenty-first century?

Ierrellus,

…by ALSO referring to the most toxic forms of religious fundamentalism as ~~ et cetera.
These references do paint a larger picture, do they not, about one’s particular belief in God and how that belief affects their own life and that of others.
Why would you dismiss them? That would be like sweeping the dirt under the rug?, no?

Have you ever put a puzzle together? Do you throw away the pieces which you just cannot seem to fit somewhere? Or do you try to figure out where they actually fit?

.

I myself am not sure of that. The names have changed and the circumstances but it seems to me that that same God exists and the ideas too.

What is it that you think WILL replace the same old God belief?

So, in a nutshell, where do YOU see God’s actual place in the twenty-first century?
Is your God an "I Am Who I Am or is your God an I Am Who I Am Becoming?

Do you think that your God is the same God in time (or out of time) NOW as was in time (or out lol) before any thought or conception ever occurred of this plausible Something?
Does or did the thought which brought God into existence change God?

Nothing I can propose would please you. I’ve stated my perspective again and again and yet you ask questions as if I had never tried to explain anything about my progressive religious beliefs. I believe evolution is not without purpose. Take it from there.
I reference the “god is dead” idea as coming into vogue after Nietzsche and as popular in the early 20th century. In any event, the idea does nothing to benefit the destiny of humans on the Earth or to remedy man’s inhumanity to man…
So you think you are immune to determinism? Every stem cell in your body “knew” what organ it would become.
I’ve had problems with Nagel since his “What It’s Like to be a Bat” essay, circa 1970s. He claimed we’ll never know what that is like. E. O. Wilson did a thorough rebuttalof the essay in his work “Consilience” in which he explains in detail what it’s like to be a bee.

If someone was denying those phenomena or if they were painting a rosy picture of religion in general, sure then it’s sweeping under the rug. But if it is not relevent to a point someone is making or if it is openly or implicitly fallacious - some (or many or even most) religious believers have done X, therefore religious belief is Y, then it is good that he points out the problem. And this is endemic to discussions like this. Sure, theists also focus where they want to in these kinds of discussions, some of them that is. But the sins of one group do not excuse the irrationality of the other and vice versa.

If we focus only on cases that fit our judgments of religion, we make precisely this mistake. You are defending the criticism by using the same argument as the criticism.

Given all the billions of people who have believed in God in that time, the evidence and proofs must be convincing to somebody. What the hell do you even mean declaring something that has convinced billions of people to be unconvincing? Unconvincing to you personally? Who cares?

And many others declare their belief is based on proof and/or evidence.

Because like five people have read your proof against the existence of God and zero of them took it seriously.

I wonder if you are aware of the ad populum fallacy.

For rationality sake, the bottom line is justification within an empirical-rational reality.

Who cares?
As a responsible citizen of the world, when informed of this stats and the whole range of evil acts by SOME [from a potential pool of 300 million]
thereligionofpeace.com/TROP.jpg
for humanity sake, one has to take note and care.

Then provide the proofs and justification with a credible platform which is no other than the empirical-rational one. Else which other?

Whether anyone agree with me or not, it is critical to take note of the stats of evil acts from theists [a critical SOME of large numbers] who act in the name of a God which is illusory and an impossibility.

While many theists concede this I would say more, at least within Christianity that I have encountered are not conceding this but seeing this as essential or positive. Not backed into a corner by someone’s great rationality but valuing faith. This should be coupled with the previous poster’s point that many others have empirical reasons for believing in God. If you think this is not the case, you probably lack an understanding of what empirical means, especially in philosophy. Further an examination of the processes through which you yourself arrived at beliefs is likely to contain many faith or intuition based beliefs, like many of the one’s you have about theists, what must necessarily be the case, what a valid syllogism is, the pacific nature of Christianity, and likely a host of other more personal heuristics you use to navigate the world, often successfully.

Ierrellus

That is not necessarily true. I cannot see your future posts or writings into the future.
Somehow I cannot see us disagreeing on everything. But my thoughts and experiences can have the capacity to be different than yours so…

So are you saying here that my mind does not have the right to respond with another question?
If we all agreed with one another, why even have a philosophy forum? Statements do lead to other question.

That is your right to believe. I can see how you would believe that. It has so followed such a distinct course. Look where we began and who knows where we will end up.

Do people believe that because they believe in a designing God?
Are you saying that the act of evolution is a conscious one like our conscious choices are? Well, not all of our choices are that consciously made.

I cannot know if this is true or not and neither can you actually. Perhaps you are basing this on your own inner experience and belief in a God.
But it doesn’t seem to me, on one side of the coin, that the idea of God has done much to remedy to benefit or to save humanity so far.
True, there are many believers who have benefited mankind through their actions but I wonder if many of those, in not believing, might still have benefited mankind.
It seems to me that if humanity needs a God in order to be humane to other human beings, something is gravely lacking.

Of course not and it is quite awesome, isn’t it?
But I do not see ALL events as being determined or pre-determined.
I do see cause and effect especially if we go back far enough or even as far back as a day or a week.
I do not know if anything is random. I cannot say either way and I prefer not to…well, I might suggest that nothing is random - we just do not take the time to look and we do not have all of the facts.
We choose to see what we want to.
But I do see myself as having free choice and I may not be able to change what has happened but I can still change it in the way I see it and choose to transform it.
And no matter what, I am still eventually responsible for my own outcome.

I will have to read that to know if he really can have the experience to know what it’s like to be a bee.
I think not but I will keep an open mind.

I wonder if you have the reading comprehension skills to realize I didn’t do anything even vaguely associated with the above in my comment. Let me repeat my comment, and see if you can actually manage an intelligent reply to it this time:

Why are you calling something ‘unconvincing’ when it has actually convinced billions of people?

Please note that a question is not a damned argument, of the ‘ad populum’ variety or any other variety. If you need me to teach you how logical fallacies work, I can. In fact, I have an essay or two kicking around on here for that very purpose.

You need to learn how this shit actually works if you want to be taken seriously as some kind of rationalist that has the capacity to prove/disprove things. If you’re this bad at comprehension of fallacies, then you know (admit it or not) that your background in philosophy can’t cash the checks you write with your haughty attitude, so why not give it up and learn a little?

That’s been done many times in many places by more authors than you will have time in your life to read. What is the purpose in pretending nobody has presented or discussed the rational case for the existence of God? Is it because you lack a basic familiarity with the arguments?

On the other hand, millions of people were once convinced that Marxism, Communism, socialism etc., reflected the most rational and virtuous embodiment of political economy.

But at least here [historically] there are actual human interactions that can be described and assessed and judged.

How so with God?

What facts about God – a God, the God, your God – are you able to provide for us that can in turn be described and assessed and judged?

Right, and I wouldn’t call Marxism, Communism, socialism etc. unconvincing either. That would be dumb has hell, as obviously a great many people actually were convinced. What was your point?

My point was that being convinced or unconvinced that Marxism, Communism, socialism etc., reflected the most rational embodiment of political economy was predicated on the fact that the arguments were rooted in actual human interactions that could be described, assessed and judged.

Now, how would you describe, assess and judge a God, the God, your God such that others are then able to at least determine if in fact this is the most rational embodiment of belief — of that which is said to be true for all of us.

And, with immortality, salvation and divine justice at stake what could possibly be more important to mere mortals than being able to in fact establish that?

Sure, we can go on and on and on as philosophers configuring and then reconfiguring God [technically, epistemologically] into one or another intellectual contraption.

But we are all faced with death, with oblivion in a No God world. And in a No God world we are all confronted with value judgments that come into conflict. Precipitating for centuries now all manner of intense human pain and suffering. How then ought we to live in a No God world?

The God world folks will either go there or they won’t.

Point is you may not have used that directly as a conclusion but it is leading to that argumentum ad populum on the basis of a your question.

Note I stated ‘empirical-rational’ not rational.

I understand there are arguments based purely on reason alone for the existence of a God, e.g. the ontological argument for an ontological God. In any case, this is an impossible proof [Kant].

You are a moderator here and I wonder why you are using the term the derogatory term ‘shit’ so easily. Generally I do not debate or discuss contentious issues [especially on the existence of God] with moderators as it is always a win-lose or lose-lose situation to non-moderators since moderators by default has the ace cards. Since this is getting ‘shitty’ I shall give it a pass.