KingandPriest wrote:
Is this your answer to the questions?
Your claim that there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of God is false. This has been one of the greatest challenges on this forum. The word evidence seems to change definitions. Rather than admitting there are types of evidence, and some types of evidence point to the existence of some higher power or designer of the universe.
This doesn't help Christianity or the Abrahamic picture of God at all. To begin with, there is actually overwhelming evidence that the Bible is false. The claims made in the Bible have already been demonstrated to be false. Jesus is said to have stated that those who believe in him will be able to drink poison and not be harmed by it. They should also be able to lay their hands on the sick and heal them. Even raise the dead. Yet clearly no one who claims to believe in Jesus can do any of these things.
Jesus also stated that he would do anything that is asked of him in his name. Yet this has also been demonstrated repeatedly to be false, even by the most devout believers.
Many of the claims made by Paul, a major author of the Christian New Testament, have also been demonstrated to clearly be false in ill-informed.
So, not only is there no evidence that the God described in the Bible exists, but there is actually overwhelming evidence that it cannot possibly exist,
as described in the Bible.
As far as "
evidence" for the existence of some sort of other more abstract concept of a higher entity being responsible for the existence of the universe, that is nothing more than a guess. There is no "
evidence" to support that guess. The only "
evidence" that theists have ever been able to claim has been nothing more than their subjective opinion that they can't understand how a universe could exist if it wasn't designed. The problem with this idea is that this doesn't help the argument for a preexisting infinitely complex and intelligent God existing, himself without a creator.
So no, there is no 'evidence' for any kind of God actually. But the Biblical God has been disproved by the Bible itself. The Biblical God simply cannot exist
as described in the Bible. That's a given because the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
KingandPriest wrote:
The evidence of the existence of God is often indirect. Just like the evidence we use to date the age of the sun or age of the universe. Even in our physical reality there are things which we claim to know with no direct knowledge or direct evidence. If you wish to discredit the evidence used to claim the existence of God, you should also discredit the evidence used to claim things like the composition of the earths core or the age of the sun. We know the existence of God by indirect evidence.
Do you take the position that we cannot know anything by indirect evidence?
I haven't seen any indirect "
evidence" for the existence of a God. Especially anything that would even remotely compare with the scientific examples you have given.
For example, we can see the sun, and we can measure the radiation it gives off. We also know what the sun is made of by studying the spectral lines of the radiation it gives off. We understand nuclear fusion, and we can measure the size of the sun, both geometrically, and in terms of its mass. So we can basically calculate DIRECTLY from these observations how old the sun is. Not only can we determine how old it is, but we can even determine how much longer it will continue to burn.
I don't see how you can compare any of that with any so-called "
indirect evidence" for the existence of a God. There doesn't need to be a God. That wouldn't explain anything anyway. An
unexplained God hardly serves as an explanation for anything.
If you claim there had to have been a conscious sentient designer to design the universe simply because the universe is complex, then
by that same logic you must also concede that a complex intelligent God would have also had to have been
designed as well.
And if you allow that your God could have "
just existed" without having been designed, then you are being inconsistent in your argument if you don't allow the same thing for the universe.
So no. There is absolutely no evidence that any type of God needs to exist.
And this is just yet another thing that Paul was grossly wrong about.
KingandPriest wrote:
Why is this a false comparison. We know that God exists on the basis of testimony and indirect evidence which supports his existence. The same way we "know" the BBT, we know God exists. Way meaning through a combination of indirect evidence and faith. The BBT relies on a combination of indirect evidence and acceptance of certain claims as true. No direct evidence of these additional claims.
It is after we know God exists, that I compare having faith in God to having faith that the sun will come up tomorrow.
I totally reject your claims here. We do not
know that a God exists in the same way we know the Big Bang Theory. To the contrary, the Big Bang Theory is based upon actual evidence of observing the universe. In fact, The Big Bang Theory cannot be wrong as it is actually stated in science. Keep in mind that BBT does not say anything about what might have given rise to the original start of the Big Bang. But the fact that a Big Bang happened we can be absolutely certain of.
Also, your comparison with observed data collected from the universe with "
testimony" from religious theists is clearly FALSE. The problem with your comparison here is that "testimony" from theists is extremely erratic and is highly subjective and different from person to person. In fact, people from ALL RELIGIONS have given testimony to the existence of their various Gods. They can't all be true.
The observed data that leads us to an understanding of the BBT is constant among all those who measure it. Even those who deny the results typically concede that the data is real. And those who deny the results typically also have theological reasons for doing so.
KingandPriest wrote:
Now I agree the method of how we know the sun exists is different than the method for how we know God exists. I am not comparing the method of how we know the sun exists with how we know God exists. I am comparing faith to faith.
Is it wrong to compare a "kind of fatih (or trust)" with another kind of faith?
Is it wrong to compare red apples to green apples?
Do you claim one "kind of fatih (or trust)" is soo different from another that no comparisons are possible?
Are red and green apples so different that it is impossible or incorrect to compare red apples to green apples?
I see the above as nothing more than an argument of semantics in an attempt to try to make something out of nothing.
The kind of faith that a theists needs to have to believe in a God is in no way the same kind of faith that a scientist has in the scientific method. The scientific method has PROVEN itself to be TRUE. The results cannot be argued with. It's perfectly legitimate to TRUST (i.e. have faith) in a means of inquire that has been proven over the centuries.
Comparing this will placing "faith" (even defined as trust) in a given religious mythology is not comparing red apples with green apples. This is talking about something entirely different altogether.
Science has PROVEN that it knows what it's talking about. Just ask anyone from Japan about Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Or on a less dramatic scale of things, just go visit a Nuclear Power Plant.
Science is TRUTH. Religious mythologies are not. And they have been proven to be false by their own doctrines. The Bible proves itself to be false many times over.
This doesn't mean that there "
can't" be a higher entity of mystical nature. But if one exists the Hebrew Bible most certainly doesn't describe it, and neither do we have any convincing or compelling evidence for the existence of such an entity.
All an "atheist" say is that until such evidence can be brought forward they see no reason to believe in these claims of a supreme being.
Disclaimer: It is true that
some atheists do claim that there is no God of any kind. But that goes beyond merely being an atheist. Such people are actually claiming to know something that even they can't know.
I do not personally claim that there cannot be a God of any kind.
I do, however, argue that the Bible cannot be true
as written simply because it is filled with too many self-contradictions and obvious falsehoods.
