How is science different then "feeling" God?

[Tart]

How is observational science, being based on how we perceive our universe and how we make sense of those perceptions, any different then someone who believes in God because they "feel" his presence?

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 141 by Tart]

All of these things are consistent with the Christian world view. Christianity, tells us that there will be false gods and ideals in the world. That they are non living, created deities, who have no power, nor any all knowing knowledge, or anything like these.

If you think about what you've said, you will realise that it is also consistent with atheism.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 158 by Tart]

See there is such a thing as a "foundation"... There is a foundation of truth, and reasoning. Something that exists beyond ourselves that truth is part of. A Truth for humanity, and all that humanity struggles with. Our conciseness, our conviction, free will, the law and righteousness. Look, every part along the way, i have been referencing the foundations of knowledge.

Logic, and an objective standard of reasoning. This is saying, that true Logic, starts with a truth that is from beyond ourselves. That it may not rest on our own reasoning but an objective truth from beyond ourselves... The Greeks called it "logos", and it is Jesus Christ. It is where our word for "logic" comes from. A "creative order" that begins with the Alpha, and ends with the Omega.

Logos (noun): the Word of God, or principle of divine reason and creative order, identified in the Gospel of John with the second person of the Trinity incarnate in Jesus Christ.

This is our foundations for philosophy, and reasoning, and ultimately... our foundations for science..

Knowledge is founded on physical evidence. Knowledge is founded on experimentation and the recognition that certain things happen each and every time for a certain set of reasons. Knowledge is NOT founded on make believe. And by make believe I mean the tendency to make up an answer that one has determined to be suitable and to then declare it to be true. Which is why Aristotle is simultaneously revered as the first scientist, and at the same time regarded as a very poor scientist. Aristotle believed that things happen for a reason which could be ascertained. The the very notion of which represents the beginning of the scientific process. But Aristotle's methods for figuring out what was happening were not, I am afraid, very scientific. So he reached false conclusions. Aristotle was far more intelligent than I am. But, with a couple of thousand extra years of human knowledge under my belt, I am far more knowledgeable. If Aristotle could be brought back to life, I could be HIS teacher. At least briefly.

So this tendency that believers have to look towards the past as a time of knowledge and informed wisdom, is actually an ignorant position. We can revear these people for their intelligence, and recognize that they are responsible for elevating us to the point where we are now. But that is no reason to suppose that they have knowledge that we lack. The reverse is true. We have far more knowledge at our fingertips than they could have ever imagined. Again, because we have the advantage of thousands of years of extra research. Not to mention really cool technology that we can use to gather the evidence with.

The foundation of truth and reasoning IS NOT founded on make believe. It's founded on collecting physical evidence. The foundations of philosophy were grounded in assumptions that are proving to be erroneous. Beliefs founded on assumptions that prove to be false are beliefs that have no foundation, and are destined to fall.

I would also like to ask a question of you. Where did God ever offer humans free will?

Our law is created under God, and it give man equal God given rights. That we have free will, and all will stand in judgement for our actions, it a court of law. This mirrors God judgement for ALL your actions.

Modern humans have far outstripped the laws and morals of the God of the Bible. We have outlawed genocide, which the God of the Bible regularly commanded take place. We have outlawed slavery, which God not only condoned, but gave instructions for. We also wear clothes made of different materials despite God's prohibition. And if God doesn't like it I guess He knows at He can do about it.

You guys say that "there is no evidence", yet on the other side of things, we have people like Simon Greenleef, who was an expert on "evidence", and he literally went from atheist, nonbeliever to Christian from him studying the evidence, and the law, and its fulfillment in Christ, all while being the founder of Harvard Law school.. The first school in our great nation.

"Of the Divine character of the Bible, I think, no man who deals honestly with his own mind and heart can entertain a reasonable doubt, For myself, I must say, that having for many years

made the evidences of Christianity the subject of close study, the result has been a firm and increasing conviction of the authenticity and plenary inspiration of the Bible. It is indeed the Word of God."— Simon Greenleaf

Simon Greenleaf was born in Maine in 1783 to a good Christian family with roots in England. Simon Greenleaf was an intelligent man who may have questioned the truth of the Bible during his youth. But to call him an atheist is a misappropriation of the term. Simon Greenleaf was as steeped in Christianity as you are. The concept of the non existence of God would have been just as unfathomable to a man of his era as it is to you. Because there was no other reasonable explanation for existence during his day. Simon Greenleaf was born two hundred years too early to be a true atheist.

E=MC², the law of conservation of energy, and quantum mechanics. These things explain basic creation. None of these things were understood in Simon Greenleaf's day. Nor in Aristotle's day either. Looking to the past as a source of knowledge derived from individuals who did not have modern knowledge is pointless.

And this is a modern man, studying the reasoning of the first apostles, an expert in evidence, going from atheist to convert.
http://y-jesus.com/simon-greenleaf-resurrection/

Simon Greenleaf was NOT a modern man in any sense of the term. He was born 245 years ago. 245 years ago Napoleon was fourteen years old. These are NOT modern men. Merely men closer in time to us than Jesus, or Aristotle.

Christ is the foundation for truth reason, righteousness, convictions and law. He is a foundation

You know nothing of Jesus. Because Jesus left nothing of his thoughts and ideas in writing. You know only of the mythological Jesus that has been constructed over the course centuries. The original Yeshua has long since been lost; obliterated under the myth of Jesus the Christ. You only "know" what your years of programming have trained you to believe. Like any individual of any other religious belief.

You guys act for "physical evidence" but we have the expert on physic, and even the people who coined the name, saying that Physics is proof of the necessity of a God keeping all things in order and orderly.

People in scientific pursuits in the past were often quite religious. By the 20th century however it began to become clear that everything occurs for natural reasons which can be understood, and that a supernatural explanation for why things exist and occur as they do are not only not observed, they aren't really needed.

Aristotle: and the the "unmoved mover", the foundations of science... This isnt on any religion but instead on "Physics". The foundations of Physics itself sits on the necessity of God.

Aristotle was born 2400 years ago. Why in the world would you conclude that we haven't made any improvements in our knowledge over the course of 2400 years? The ancients are not a lost source of wisdom. The ancients started on a road that led us to where we are today. People in the future will have an even better understanding of reality.

Just like our country, our rights, our "logic", our righteousness and free will, our law and morality... Physics itself sits on Gods truth.

Physics rests on truth. If God is there also, than that should be apparent. So far God hasn't really shown himself to be necessary, much less present.

"that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world".
Aristotle argues, in Book 8 of the Physics
The Physics (Greek: Φυσικὴ ἀκ�όασις Phusike akroasis; Latin: Physica, or Naturalis Auscultationes, possibly meaning "lectures on nature")

Aristotle also thought that maggots arose spontaneously in dead meat. Aristotle had the right idea, but the wrong methods. Aristotle is revered today because he helped originate the scientific method. Not because he was a good scientist.

Newton said the order in nature proves God. Galileo says that God is where knowledge comes from. Einstein said his concept of God is placed on the order in nature. Dr. Hume, questions how can an atheist (like him) make sense out of the order in nature and induction?

Einstein thought that the Bible was childish. His generalized notion of a cosmic order in the universe had little to do with the Biblical God. But as I have already agreed, the early scientists were devoted Christians. That has changed with the recognition that the universe seems to work fine naturally, and that no supernatural intervention is required. Now that we are able to answer the question of existence without recourse to a creator Being, the various portions of the Bible that have always seemed too ridiculous to be true, are clearly too ridiculous to be true.

The foundation for everything we sit her and talk about. Logic, reasoning, truth, objective truth, science and beyond, rest on the foundations of an all knowing all powerful God...

And you dont even have to believe it for it to be truth. You guys dont even need to believe in it for it to continue to be truth for everyone. Becuase that is what God is, he is a foundation for everything we know.

We have moved beyond the necessity of God. You may not like it, but the recognition that portions of the Bible are too ridiculous to be true, coupled with the recognition that the God is no longer needed to answer the question of existence, means that religion is fading. But why should you fear? Truth and reason will win out eventually. Isn't that our ultimate goal as human beings?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 3 by Tart]

Ok so I say the same thing about God. I tell people to seek God, and see if it is true for themselves.

I sought God and from what I was able to determine...it isn't true.

Ball's back in your court.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 10 by Tart]

Here is how you can test if God is true.. By openly seeking God... You can start reading the scripture (the evidence), determining if the Disciples explanations make sense. You can start praying to God to reveal himself.

In addition to the above...Tart, I've done all of that. Plenty of other people on this site have, and plenty of people did not find your God. Your prediction (or should I say what you quoted other people) of looking for God and then finding him ("Do X, and Y will happen" essentially) did not happen the way you said it would happen. I did the X but I did not get the Y.

Thus, what you say should and ought to be regarded as false. Unless you mean something else entirely, or are speaking a different language or something.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 15 by Tart]

I agree with Simon Greenleef on the subject... Who was a world renown expert on evidence... Founder of Harvard Law school..

Don't know if anyone else has corrected you on this (this thread has 17 pages), but Greenleaf is NOT the founder of Harvard Law School. HLS was founded in 1817. Greenleaf didn't become a Harvard Professor of Law until 1846. He contributed to the library certainly, expanded its catalogue of books...but was not a founder.
Indeed, even the HLS website's About page makes no mention of Greenleaf.

https://hls.harvard.edu/about/history/

Thats our history... Our law? it is rested on a truth God created.. Literally, the first Law School in our states was Harvard Law.

Nope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litchfield_Law_School

The Litchfield Law School of Litchfield, Connecticut was the first law school in the United States, having been established in 1773 by Tapping Reeve, who would later became the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 17 by Tart]

But that aside... Here is a question id like you to focus on answering...
Do you guys think there is empirical evidence for depression?

After this, I'm going to ignore this thread until sometime Saturday evening (got work to do in real life).

Tart, I'd like to ask you to, in the future, ...how do I put this...?

Ask coherent questions.
To explain yourself. I think up above you are asking "Is there empirical evidence for the existence of people who feel sad/depressed", to which I can only say "Obviously".

Unless you are again saying or meaning something different, which is a frustration I have with Christians, who time and time again seem to be speaking a completely different language to myself.

[rikuoamero]

Ok, well you should know that every-time you use the word "physical" evidence... "physics" or "physical" is referring to a word, coined in a book written in ancient Greek that argued God exists...

The Physics (Greek: Φυσικὴ ἀκ�όασις Phusike akroasis; Latin: Physica, or Naturalis Auscultationes, possibly meaning "lectures on nature") is a named text, written in ancient Greek, collated from a collection of surviving manuscripts known as the Corpus Aristotelicum because attributed to the 4th-century BC philosopher, teacher, and mentor of Macedonian rulers, Aristotle.

"Aristotle argues, in Book 8 of the Physics and Book 12 of the Metaphysics, "that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world"

Tart...your constant bringing up of words in the English language deriving from words in Greek, like logic coming from Logos...is there anything substantive behind your language. I'm reading your posts, your "argument" where you point out that Jesus Christ was identified as the Logos...and all I can see there is that some Greeks a couple thousand years ago did a bit of word play with their language, and that this word eventually came to be logic in the language of English.
I'm scratching my head going "...so...? So what?" All I see is word play. I don't see any actual evidence that Jesus Christ is himself logic itself. Just that a Greek word that was used to describe him (Logos) was translated (or should I say evolved) into the English word logic. I'm not seeing anything special or supernatural going on here.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 77 by DrNoGods]

For example, I don't believe that any creature called "Bigfoot" exists. Why? Because there has never been a validated photo or video of this creature, or a dead body, or any other physical evidence for its existence. So if you asked me for evidence for my belief that Bigfoot does not exist, the answer would be that there is no evidence that it does exist, and that is the basis for my belief. It is not possible for me to provide evidence

A person who believes Bigfoot exists is expected to provide photos or videos on request. What abut us, the non-BFers? Are we supposed to provide a non...photo? A non-video? Is a person who does not collect stamps supposed to show off a stamp collection that does not exist? How can such a request even begin to logically make sense?

Tart seems to be operating that there has to be some positive evidence for atheism, even though us atheists have been telling him along it's the reverse, it's the complete lack of positive evidence for theism that (by and large) makes one an atheist. Not the production of ...negative evidence? How does one produce negative evidence?