Evidence for God... (page 24)

usualusername

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL5yplRHE9g

Fernando

Great post and thread Tammy!

I wonder if it is already worthy content for a book/let...

you seem to be assuming the macabbeans died for jehovah. perhaps you forget they are fighting for thir idemtity and culture. jehovah as presented in the ot is part of that. hebrew is their language and jehovah is one of their chief or primary gods.

many ppl in history have died for their homeland or religion or both. many muslims die for allah that hardly makes them right. maybe they were too ignorant to know better is the nivest way to label their motivations. then again the bible constantly tells us how the jews are busy worshipping other gods, hardly glorious prroof of their beliefs. archeology has fpund enormous amounts of idols in israel hardly matching the story presented in the scriptures.

the nt itself shows the disciples frustrated at roman rule, they rarely if ever mention jehovahs sanctity or freedom in his temple. the story of a free temple symboluzes a

mP

... a free israel. the poor jew was no better of under a jewish king than a roman. life was always hard. the jewish kings were monsters. solomon taxed the nirtherm tribee so much they rebelled and formed their own kingdom. hardly impressive given solomon was suppoaedly the wisest grandest richest king ever. the only ppl who woukd gain from roman freedom would be the aristocracy who fill the power vaccuum.

mP

@tec

lots of people die for lies. muslims, germans under hitler. they are unfortunarte victims themselves. victims often have no choice in the matter, some monster wants to kill them and they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. look at all those dead talibans today,'are they right. of course not they may believe so, but given many probably have no way of verifying the history or integrity of the koran, they have no way of knowing better.

passwordprotected

I'm not going to read all 12 pages of comments on Tec's OP.

However, I would like to chime in.

I was raised JW by JW parents, of which my mother was raised by JW parents. I served the organisation faithfully for 36 years before waking up in 2008, and swiftly exiting.

Upon exit from the Watchtower, I "found" Christianity. It was comforting. It "made sense". My wife and I quickly found ourselves attending a church and being as intensley involved in it as we'd been with the Watchtower society.

However, 3 years after that, I now identify myself as an atheist.

You see, Tec's reasonable list of subjective evidence "for God" is just that; subjective. And as a result, not evidence for anything other than Tec's belief that there is a god.

OnTheWayOut is right; any evidence posited to "prove" that there is a god is merely confirmation bias.

Tec - like I once did - wants to believe there was this all powerful, sovereign being who created the universe and has a "plan and a purpose" for his/her life, and that this God was best represented in a man, his son, Jesus Christ.

Now that I don't believe in any god or supreme beings, I realise that the evidence I used to convince myself of a god's existence was subjective and was merely confirmation bias.

the Bible doesn't prove there's a god
the content of the Bible doesn't prove there's a god
the world we live in doesn't prove there's a god
the awesome wonder of the universe doesn't prove there's a god
our emotional/physical/psychological/spiritual/souful/mental experiences aren't proof that there's a god
Christianity doesn't prove there's a god
the story of Jesus doesn't prove there's a god
the story of the resurrection of Jesus doesn't prove there's a god

Add anything you want to that list and I guarantee you - having once been an ardent believer - it won't prove there's a god.

However, anyone can choose to believe in God, and use whatever evidence they so choose to shore up that belief and faith. But that evidence will always be subjective and will always be biased towards confirming that belief.

On a personal note, since jettisoning belief in gods, I have never been more calm, at peace, contented, happy and at ease before in my life. I highly recommend it.

THE GLADIATOR

passwordprotected To Christians, Christ personally contacting them is evidence to them, which as you say, makes it subjective evidence. According to the bible Christ spoke his followers in person and after his death, so this is what is expected. At the end of the day, one believes this happens or they don’t. I'm lucky if the bin man speaks to me.

OnTheWayOut

Even if we can discount conflicting personal contact instructions/messages from God/Jesus/Holy Spirit (and I don't discount their existence) when someone claims a voice or otherwise clear contact, smart people ask them to seek help.

Other forms of contact I hear about are feelings in answer to prayers, huge coincidences that someone believes cannot be a coincidence. When a belieber makes a bad decision, they were on their own without an answer. When they make a good choice, God "told" them somehow.

I had that type of contact before. It took way more than a decade to realize it was conjured in my mind by a huge desire/need for it to be true and it was reinforced by confirmation bias.

If God contacts me personally, I will consult with experts. When I am considered mentally sound, I will ask God to reveal himself in a more effective way so that others know my story is real. Until then, such things go with spoon benders and psychics.

Twitch

Yea, evidence for god is nothing but subjective. I would be open to change this belief if there was hard evidence. If some wish to believe that their conscience is the voice of god or that the ability to conceptualize and virtualize a conversation with themselves as god's voice similar to a child's invisible friends, well, can't say anything if it gets them thru the day and makes you a better person. Seems a bit of a sliding scale though; where is the line between this belief and schizophrenia and/or other forms of mental illness? Not all believers hear or believe such things.

sabastious

Tec, from what I have glanced at on here, you simply need to google "Confirmation Bias"

I'm not sure what you expect to get in return from a comment like this OTWO. I find it offensive and it's not even directed at me. I think you need to study up on the human brain because your conclusion in this matter is very shallow and not well thought out.

The human brain works by association. Therefore, it's not only impossible to avoid some form of confirmation bias it's actually encouraged to come to a satisfying world view. The brain is constantly associating and confirming. No human comes to a firm conclusion about everything it experiences, in fact it's impossible to come to a concrete conclusion. The brain merely takes into consideration all known facts and experiences and associates them with each other. We only have the illusion of mental cohesion and some people are better at substantiating that illusion than others. All world views are incomplete, even the atheistic world view. You wrongly speak with the air of superiority when you are just as lost as the rest of us. You would do well to recognize this.

You are a thinker which means you lean towards rational thinking. So, "confirmation bias" works best for you as an explanation for the believing based world views of other people, but like I said it's as incomplete as any theory. Come off your pedestal so we can hear you better and maybe even have a healthy exchange of ideas rather than being fundamentally discounted by a flawed argument.

-Sab

Evidence for God...

Share this