Can evidence lead to belief in god(s)?

[Argenta]

Hello everyone. I’m Argenta and this is my first post.

I stopped believing in deities before I was old enough to buy cigarettes but I have ever since wondered why so many smart people do sincerely believe in one god or another. I have considered the evidence theists present to support their beliefs but have only been able to conclude there is no evidence. None at all. I have searched for the arguments theists present to justify their beliefs and found fallacies in them all.

Maybe I’ve missed something.

So my proposition for debate is that belief in gods serves to satisfy emotional needs and apologetics serve to post-rationalise such beliefs. Am I right or can any theists point to the evidence or arguments that genuinely converted them to belief in god(s)?

Argenta

[EduChris]

...people don't CHOOSE to believe whether a specific deity (or ANYTHING or ANYONE) exists or not. Something is either real to someone, or it is NOT...

Are you saying that one's belief or disbelief cannot be completely reduced to objective, diligent, rational analysis? That in the end, belief or disbelief are equally subjective?

[McCulloch]

The "God hypothesis" cannot be objectively demonstrated to the satisfaction of all, but it is no less reasonable than the "no-god hypothesis" (and probably even more reasonable).

So you say. Can you demonstrate that the no-god hypothesis is more reasonable than the god hypothesis?

The evidence is the common human experience that we have free will. The idea that we are more than mere wind-up dolls is a properly basic belief. The question here is, "Which hypothesis--the 'God hypothesis' or the 'No-god hypothesis' can best account for free will?" Since the "No-god hypothesis" has no theoretical basis to allow for free will, and since the "God hypothesis" does allow for free will, the "God hypothesis" is the better choice.

Neurological research shows that the only difference between what we perceive as being an act that we will and an act that is involuntary is whether we are aware of the formation of the intent to do the act. All of our intentions are the product of a biological organ known as the brain. Change the brain, surgically, by accident, disease or chemistry and you change the intentions. Free will does not need a God to explain it.

This is a canard. You can always find nuts who believe or disbelieve anything despite the evidence. The point is, if God exists and desired that all people objectively believe in God, all people would believe objectively--but this would nullify our free will to believe or not.

I have no free will to believe or not. Neither do you. I could say that I believe that there are blue humanoids on Pandora, a lush moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system. But in reality, I have my doubts. I cannot, merely by force of will, decide that I believe this or disbelieve that. Can you?

God can reveal himself to some, but even here God does not usually force belief or action. Saying "no" to God is a real option, and people are always free to interpret their experiences of God as some rare psychological quirk. Free will is maintained if God generally chooses to remain unobtrusive.

Apparently God has chosen to remain unobtrusive in the modern age. However, in more primitive societies, God interacts more directly with humans. Adam, Noah, Moses, David, the prophets, Jesus, Paul, Peter, Mohammad, Joseph Smith and others record that they believe in a much less unobtrusive god than your god.

The Christian theist view is that God desires a mutual relationship of love with us. Such a relationship could not exist if God were to objectively impose himself on us.

Yes, that's right. There is no way that God could have such a relationship with Paul, for example, after the very objective and obtrusive encounter on the Damascus road. The flip side is that it is also impossible to have anything that can be properly described as a relationship with an entity that is as hidden from our sight as your god appears to be.

We would resent the power imbalance, we would feel coerced. In giving us the opportunity to reject him, God shifts the balance of power, in favor of mutuality, so that we can freely choose to believe in God or not.

Is there any indication that Moses, Jesus or Paul resented the power imbalance? Is there anything written in the Christian Bible which attributes this motive to God, explaining his apparent hiddenness? Or is this just a way to explain away an embarrassing truth, that a hidden god is indistinguishable from one that is not there at all?

[Board]

...people don't CHOOSE to believe whether a specific deity (or ANYTHING or ANYONE) exists or not. Something is either real to someone, or it is NOT...

Are you saying that one's belief or disbelief cannot be completely reduced to objective, diligent, rational analysis? That in the end, belief or disbelief are equally subjective?

Isn't that the nature of "belief"? If it were not subjective then it would be a fact and not a belief...

People may choose what they want to believe but that certainly does not make it truth. Unless something can be shown to be true then it is inherently subjective.

Disbelief on the other hand is a more rational stance to take in these cases. By recognizing the subjectivity of the belief held by another it is more rational to suspend belief until more objective evidence is presented.

So I would not say that belief and disbelief are equally subjective. Belief tends to be slightly more subjective than disbelief as it has taken a stance before all the facts are in where disbelief wants more evidence. In the end they are both subjective until the topic they are debating is proven one way or the other.

[EduChris]

...Belief tends to be slightly more subjective than disbelief as it has taken a stance before all the facts are in where disbelief wants more evidence...

Except in this case we either believe the universe constitutes its own explanation, or we don't believe it. The "default position" of disbelief depends on the way the question is formulated.

...In the end they are both subjective until the topic they are debating is proven one way or the other.

Except that science cannot really "prove" anything (although it might be able disprove something).

When there is no clear winner between mutually exclusive options, you look at each option and see where it leads. The more fruitful option is the more rational one to adopt--tentatively at least--assuming everything else is equal.

[Board]

...Belief tends to be slightly more subjective than disbelief as it has taken a stance before all the facts are in where disbelief wants more evidence...

Except in this case we either believe the universe constitutes its own explanation, or we don't believe it. The "default position" of disbelief depends on the way the question is formulated.

Yes however the defense of the belief resides on the person making the claim. So relying on the formulation of the question is just a play on words.

Suppose someone has stated " the universe constitutes its own explanation" then it is on them to defend that position. Where as if the statement is "God exists" then my disbelief does not mean I have to then support statement "the universe constitutes its own explanation."

...In the end they are both subjective until the topic they are debating is proven one way or the other.

Except that science cannot really "prove" anything (although it might be able disprove something).

Well here again is where we disagree. Science has been able to "prove" many things within the realm of our current understanding. It is like an onion... or an ogre for the Shrek fans... Science is all about layers and we are peeling away to reach better understanding of the world.

When there is no clear winner between mutually exclusive options, you look at each option and see where it leads. The more fruitful option is the more rational one to adopt--tentatively at least--assuming everything else is equal.

Yet your judgement of which is more fruitful is subjective. How do you know where both options lead?

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 104:

...
Except that science cannot really "prove" anything (although it might be able disprove something).

Science (and the scientific method) has a track record of being able to prove many things.

To deny this is typical of those theists who will accept on faith that dead folks can dance, or that a god might object to folks dancing, whether they're dead or not.

When there is no clear winner between mutually exclusive options, you look at each option and see where it leads. The more fruitful option is the more rational one to adopt--tentatively at least--assuming everything else is equal.

Who then determines what is fruitful?

I personally don't find it very 'fruitful' to claim to know the properties of something I can't even show exists.

[EduChris]

...Science (and the scientific method) has a track record of being able to prove many things...To deny this is typical of those theists who will accept on faith that...

According to Stephen Hawking,

Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory." The "unprovable but falsifiable" nature of theories is a necessary consequence of using inductive logic (emphasis added).

...your judgement of which is more fruitful is subjective. How do you know where both options lead?...

You do thought experiments. You use logic and reason to work through the consequences of each available option.

[Woland]

...people don't CHOOSE to believe whether a specific deity (or ANYTHING or ANYONE) exists or not. Something is either real to someone, or it is NOT...

Are you saying that one's belief or disbelief cannot be completely reduced to objective, diligent, rational analysis? That in the end, belief or disbelief are equally subjective?

Are you able to make yourself believe that Mickey Mouse exists in reality, or not?

That's the only question which matters in illustrating my point - which completely annihilates your notion that "GOD" is PERFECTLY invisible and indistinguishable from PURE DELUSION so that we can CHOOSE to blindly believe in his specific, unevidenced self among ALL the other gods without any evidence meaningfully setting him apart from the other deities who are mutually exclusive to the Christian god concept.

Religionists increasingly seem to be trying to reduce any argument to super-solipsism implying that WHATEVER you believe is justified.

Tell me about ONE SINGLE THING that I cannot justify/defend/reconcile using your "methods" (supersolipsism + wishful thinking + endless unevidenced supernatural claims + faith).

If you can't find such a thing, you should realize the extent to which you don't have a reasonable argument.

At any rate, what you said is clearly unreasonable to hold as true given the lack of positive evidence at hand when one considers, AGAIN, babies dying and the "unfortunate" geographical location of those who will never even HEAR about your deity. How do you think you can explain these?

If you disagree, PLEASE tell me about **anything** which you find unreasonable/immoral, and I'll explain to you, using "arguments" which mirror your own, why said thing is actually reasonable/moral according to your own standards of argumentation and evidence.

-Woland

[EduChris]

...if the statement is "God exists" then my disbelief does not mean I have to then support statement "the universe constitutes its own explanation"...

It does not appear that the universe constitutes its own explanation. That being the case, "God" is the word we use to explain the universe.

If the universe were its own explanation, that wouldn't necessarily disprove God, but it would remove one item from the theist's list of reasons for God.

[Woland]

When there is no clear winner between mutually exclusive options, you look at each option and see where it leads. The more fruitful option is the more rational one to adopt--tentatively at least--assuming everything else is equal.

Sure.

That's all fine until you start mass-filling in your insofar empty notion of "a" God (whatever that unfalsifiable notion could even possibly mean) with all sorts of specific attributes like having been a man, having been resurrected, having been responsible for personal miracles, having ordered and conducted massacres (notably of children), being loving yet directly responsible for indiscriminately applied and terrible physical torture, etc.

That's hardly reasonable, and hardly the more fruitful option.

It's called wishful thinking (even though I don't see why anyone would wish this god concept to be real).

Nothing wrong with exploring wishful thinking, just label it properly.

-Woland