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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Nope - we can detect many things indirectly. For example the vast majority of the electromagnetic spectrum is invisible to us. But we know its there indirectly via tools we use. The mobile phone would be one example of such a tool. We don't see black holes directly. But we know they exist by the way they interact with light. & other objects But unlike a detecting black holes we have no way of detecting god. That's the point I'm making. God & the undetectable / non-existent have the very same atrobutes.
As for trusting our senses, yes we can. But we have to also accept our senses can be very wrong. Optical illusions et al are good examples of our senses being fooled. So we have to try to determine and achieve consistent results. This is why the scientific method, & its predecessors, is so powerful. Its taken us from nomadic hunter gatherer literally to the moon & back. Consistent results offer reliable conclusions. I don't find such power in any theology or explanation for god.
Right, I agree we can detect things indirectly, but this is no substitute for the thing itself. Here's an example, back in the day chemists theorized a substance called phlogiston, that is released during combustion. The fact that things in enclosed air only burn for a short time was indirect evidence that air held a finite amount of phlogiston. But of course, the whole concept was wrong.
Its not enough to just say we can trust our senses, you have to explain why. Consistent results doesn't answer the question, since a broken clock consistently gets the time right two times a day. You need to show that our senses are reliable before you give any merit to consistency. Schizophrenics consistently hear voices. Illusions are also consistent observations. You need to have a philosophical justification for the Scientific Method, otherwise you're building a castle on sand.
Thus why in science consistency must come from independent replication. This is a basic requirement. In fact no medicine is signed of without multiple sources of independent replication. That is not to say the system is perfect. But it produces results. I say again to and back from the moon.
But I don't see why testing things indirectly is a problem. So what if I can access directly the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we use to make mobile phone calls. My mobile phone can as can the millions of other mobile phones. That is powerful evidence that that part of the electromagnetic spectrum exists.
As for a broken clock yes it's correct twice a day, but wrong the rest of the time. What is more consistent - well the fact its wrong most of the time, thus you should take any information from it with a fist full of salt. I view religion like a stoped clock. Yes it its not always wrong, but like the stoped clock most of the time it is.
So far we have explained how we can test the natural world and things within it. But again we have no way to testing god, which you claim is in the natural world, either directly or indirectly?
Testing things indirectly isn't a problem for me, but from what you wrote it seemed it was a problem for you. So if you're ok with indirect evidence, then my foot to footprint analogy still stands. God is the foot, the universe is the footprint.
I wanted you to go underneath the hood of the scientific method. Philosophy has had a long and interesting conversation in terms of metaphysics and epistemology, and the scientific method is derived from empiricism specifically. I simply wanted to see if you were familiar with these philosophical foundations. Most people aren't, and they take the scientific method for granted.
Nope - we can detect many things indirectly. For example the vast majority of the electromagnetic spectrum is invisible to us. But we know its there indirectly via tools we use. The mobile phone would be one example of such a tool. We don't see black holes directly. But we know they exist by the way they interact with light. & other objects But unlike a detecting black holes we have no way of detecting god. That's the point I'm making. God & the undetectable / non-existent have the very same atrobutes.
As for trusting our senses, yes we can. But we have to also accept our senses can be very wrong. Optical illusions et al are good examples of our senses being fooled. So we have to try to determine and achieve consistent results. This is why the scientific method, & its predecessors, is so powerful. Its taken us from nomadic hunter gatherer literally to the moon & back. Consistent results offer reliable conclusions. I don't find such power in any theology or explanation for god.
If Islam had continued doing what God told them to do, then the God of Islam would be the same as the Christian God. They just lost their way. That is why there is so much of their book that contradicts what God would really ask us to do. And you do not know for sure that it is a black hole that is actually bending light. No one has ever seen a black hole, they only admit that it exists simply because of how it affects light. Well the Christian knows that God exists because of how He has affected them. He has too many individuals who have given testimony that they were changed by God. And those same Christians look to the Bible for what they believe. And since so much of what the Bible has yielded has been proven beneficial, there is no reason to believe that all of it is no good, or that all of it is not true. The narration, goes unbroken for thousands of years. All of it fitting seamlessly fitting together like a puzzle. And all of it from different authors and over thousands of years. These things themselves are miracles. And when you see that the Bible predicted years of what was going to happen and that it has been fulfilled exactly as the Bible said, when it predicted the birth of the Messiah and from where He would be born. How He would live and how He would die, then those miracles keep piling up. Then you have the fact that the Jews hierarchy didn't like Christ. They had the power to get rid of the Christian God. There were other people who said they were the Messiah. They had followers too. Enough that it caused an uprising. The New Testament mentions them and how the false Messiah's ended up dead, and nothing came from the movement. But when it comes to Jesus, it was different. Even though the disciples ran for their lives for fear of the Jews doing the same to them as what happened to their Teacher, Christianity through Christ became a world wide movement. Even with all against Christianity, it thrived under persecution. And as I said, there were thousands of Christians who gave their lives to preach Christ and Him crucified. And there are thousands more who risk life, limb, property and then some to become and teach Christ. And they all testify to the fact that He changed their lives. Think of it thousands upon thousands of witnesses who have come forward and gave the same testimony. Then you have man y a used to be Atheist who picked up the Bible to show the errors it contained and instead found the Christ that the Bible talked about. So yes there is evidence for God. But only the wise will accept it. We'll see later how you will fair.
You're wrong!!! Of course we are able to observe black holes. Try googling the words black holes.
LIGO has detected the gravity waves produced by the collision of two black holes.
Hmm.
Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
Not LIGO.
Not for you lol.
But this is for you: There's no need to observe gravitational waves if we could observe black holes directly. Its as simple as that.
Let's assume you are correct. What does this have to do with the existence of gods or god? Do you have something observable that you can point that we can observe that proves that a god or gods exist? If so, please share it. HINT: The answer to my last question is NO.
You're asking for the wrong thing, or rather asking it in a way that I can't answer it knowing what I know.
Here's a simple example. We know God is supposed to be the Creator of mankind, correct? Mankind exists, duh, therefore mankind is indirect evidence of God. But you disagree obviously, and that's why you are asking the wrong question. You don't know what you want, you just want to debate.
No sir. The story you happen to believe in apparently says that the gods or god you believe in is in fact the creator of mankind. But there are thousands of creation stories. Why should we believe "yours"? The answer of course is that we should not believe any of them until and unless there is evidence sufficient to justify that belief.
So I ask you for that evidence and you respond that I am asking for the "wrong thing." No sir, that is exactly the right question. Your problem seems to be that you don't have any proof nor do you have any good evidence so you are twisting and turning trying your absolute best NOT to provide your best evidence.
And irony of ironies, you then accuse me of wanting to "DEBATE" on this debate forum.
Captain Obvious hasn't retired from service I see lol. I told you I was a Christian from the jump, so either adapt your comments to me specifically or call it a day. That's like you telling me you're a Darwinists, and me saying you're wrong, because there are other theories of evolution out there, like Lamarckism.
From what you wrote it seems you don't even have a definition for "god or gods," get one then come talk to me.
John, since you are unwilling to answer any questions I have posed, I will assume that you are too dishonest to correspond with.
Funny, I concluded the same thing about you earlier. Life is full of coincidences lol.
Idiotic, dishonest and cowardly response
The observation by LIGO was not designed to observe black holes. It is designed to detect gravity waves. If the gravity waves detected matched the effects predicted by Einstein do they not support the existence of both black holes and gravity waves. Is that not the purpose of science....to see beyond what the human eye can see?
Of course! So long as you apply that to God as well, who presumably requires seeing beyond what humans can see.
The problem is when atheists want direct and physical evidence, to the point where nothing but touching him is good enough. Take the Spaghetti Monster argument, you can use it to basically explain everything that is indirect. Gravity waves is nothing more than the Spaghetti Monster blowing his nose. The only black hole here are the spaghetti monster's nostrils, thus gravitational waves prove his existence.
I was not referencing any god and neither was LIGO. God is not a part of my life or the quest of LIGO.
Ironically I never made a reference that you did.
So.. We come down to NaNaNaNaNa?
@john,
please research string theory
For what? Last I heard that theory was no better than Freud's theory of the subconscious.
Explain, in detail, how you would observe a dog directly.
With my eyes, duh. So if you're going to start an epistemological debate on the nature of sensation and perception and how it relates to the external world, just know it works in my favor. I just took this class, so I'm ready lol.
Well that is problematic, because your eyes measure the waves that presumably emanated near the surface of the dog; which is how block-holes are observed. I don't care either way (your using an ill defined label); but if one of those isn't direct observation, then neither is the other.
Hah! was reading through this thread, saw your question Nyarlathotep and surmised this is where you were going with it.
Did not think Breezy would respond so... perfectly? to it. Got a chuckle out of me.
Anyways, @ John 6IX breezy:
Do you ever consider that there is a lot more evidence that man made god, and not the other way around?
You clearly didn't understand my comment if you think I fell into a trap. Not only was my answer the correct one (so yes I did answer perfectly as I always do), I even predicted in my comment that the direction Nyar was going with this would work in my favor.
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