What would count as proof of God

[Learner]

No.

Bilby is claiming that any god that interacts with humanity in any way would only be able to do so using one of the four known forces that are the only things that can possibly interact with humans.

I'm wandering if the tester readily had monitoring equipment in place, somehow, forecasting exactly where a God interaction claim, a miracle claim or similar claim, would spontaneously happen, just at the right place and right time? Assuming God is not going to come to the lab on your request.

And that therefore god's interactions with us would have been detected, easily.

When you look for something, knowing exactly what you are looking for and how to see it, and you never find it, then (if you are sane) you conclude that it's not there.

I was wondering what one would actually be looking for. What type of disturbances in the field, so to speak, would be noticeable and expected? Sounds like you have a "text-book" expectation for any creator of a universe to be noticed.

I'm pondering on the thought that by merely looking at the universe, which is systematically running as clockwork (considering the universe is created.). Does God neccessarily need to be pulling levers and strings; shovelling coal into the furnace engine, so to speak, so that you should expect to notice some creator indication? God would have included automation in my view, in concept.

If I claimed that there is an invisible creature living in my attic, that this creature has the ability to break the laws of nature and interfere in our lives, and that this creature never, ever does anything that could be detected by humans, would a reasonable person believe this claim? The answer is obviously "NO". How is an alleged god any different from the alleged creature in my story?

Never ever detected, or perhaps at least, not catching God doing it in the act. Is the claimer of "no gods possible" 100% very sure his cameras cover all bases?

As I previously posted:

"I'm wandering if the tester readily had monitoring equipment in place, somehow, forecasting exactly where a God interaction claim, a miracle claim or similar claim, would spontaneously happen, just at the right place and right time? Assuming God is not going to come to the lab on your request."

Well, its not like you can tell us where this god is going to show up. If you did that, we could bring our instruments and set up tests under controlled conditions. As of now, for every single observation we have ever made, we have zero tests to confirm the existence of a god or its ability to intervene in human affairs. Its not our fault that your god never shows up when there are scientists making observations.

Yes well here's the problem with your idea of the Christian faith. You are confusing this, it sounds like, with something you see in the movies. You said you've read the bible, but I have to believe you were not really taking it in. Rather you saw a lot of texts and thought you'd just race over them and get a little gist of the essence.

God appears visually only in the last days.

I've mentioned quite a few times, to investigate you'd have to look into archeology, history, geography, geology, chemistry, biology, and psycology. Soley through physics as it seems to be suggested here, and asking the theists to explain by physics is either disengenous or erroneus.

I'm pondering on the thought that by merely looking at the universe, which is systematically running as clockwork (if considering the universe is created.). Does God neccessarily need to be pulling levers and strings; shovelling coal into the furnace engine, so to speak, so that you should expect to notice some creator indication?

How is this god any different from a god that does not exist? How could you possibly differentiate between the two?

I don't think I agree to the notion that all claims are the same. To state the obvious, in your sole claim of 'the invisible creature in the attic' versus 'the many eye witness reports of claims, written in thousands of manuscripts,' there's a big difference.

There are no eye witness accounts of the Jesus miracles. There are not thousands of manuscripts. There are Paul's letters, and the four Gospels. And the letters and the Gospels are not eyewitness accounts. Why did you repeat this falsehood knowing fully well that it is a falsehood?

If you don't know the Christanity faith as I've mentioned in the previous above, then you more likely to be wrong again here. Although you've not explain why, I disagree.

How is the god claim different from the invisible creature in the attic that cannot be detected claim

Getting back to my point, which you avoided because you had no answer:
How do you distinguish between a god that does not exist and a god that cannot be detected? Is there any practical difference between the two?

I think I answered this or maybe it was someone elses post. The word avoidance seems to be your favouirte word, obviosly pretty redundant here.

There's no difference between god that can't be detected and a god that doesn't exist when it come to the same method for detection - the means to detect, depending on the limits of the detection apparatus. And if a god does in fact exist but is still not detected, an option left out. This would therefore mean your detecting apparatus is not good enough.

 

[Learner]

Really? Is it because its hard to detect , therefore you can't tell what it's actually doing, and yet ... it is believed dark matter does have some affect to the its mirror opposite, apparently?

Check out the link The evidence against materialism. A good method we currently have at the moment.

How about you summarize what you think is so compelling there, rather than expect anyone to watch a 30 minute video from a known creationist hack.

He is not going to do that, because the video does not say what he claims it says. I don't think he has watched the video, or that he understood the content if he did.

He had posted this same video earlier, and I had debunked his claims. I even included my comments from my earlier post in this thread, but he just ignored them again. Which speaks volumes about his personal integrity, or lack thereof.

I recall you said that once before, you were so sure of it. And when I did, I said luckily no one made any bets t.. because they would have lost a few dollars. I'm a slow poster, but don't make any bets.

(that'll be my next post before anything else, and I just noticed. I'll correct your intellectual dishonesty #839, a must)

 

[pood]

Why don’t you just summarize what Egnor says in the video and spare us irreplaceable minutes of our finite lives watching it?

 

[Rhea]

We don't claim physics can explain God.

Not sure what you’re after here, when the discussion is whether anyone can tell whether your god does anything.

Question for clarification:
Do you believe in a god that created the universe and has never been seen since?
Is that the god you are defending?
It would be useful for us to know that.

Meanwhile (lets not digress on this bit) the logic sense of the standard model, absolutely telling us, we can claim that no universe creator is possible!

You have misunderstood. The Standard model disproves the Christian god. The one who interacts with humanity. Definitely, absolutely debunked by the Standard Model and its description of the world around us.

If you describe your god as one who interacts with humans, it definitely does not exist.
Question for clarification: Is that the god you describe?

God appears visually only in the last days.

Please explain how you came to know this?
AS best as we can tell, you decided that you knew this by reading the writings of human beings. Human being that could be exactly as fallible as Drew2008, whom we watch say a thing that is not true, be explained how it is not true and then, without addressing the explanation in any way, repeat the clearly false claim.

That’s the kind of person who wrote your bible. And in “the end days” isn’t it admitted that it was a guy writing about his dream? (Or, a guy writing about a dream that another guy told him about)



Or did you find out about your god only appear at end times through a different method?
WHAT was the method by which this god intteracted with humans to let them know he was hiding out until he was done torturing them?

I've mentioned quite a few times, to investigate you'd have to look into archeology, history, geography, geology, chemistry, biology, and psycology. Soley through physics as it seems to be suggested here, and asking the theists to explain by physics is either disengenous or erroneus.

Physics is how interactions happen. If you are claiming that a laser light was shining, and it changed direction with no physics interacting with it, we’d notice that.

So the physics is something you have to answer for if you are claiming that your god did something that affects us that did not use physics.

There's no difference between god that can't be detected and a god that doesn't exist when it come to the same method for detection - the means to detect, depending on the limits of the detection apparatus. And if a god does in fact exist but is still not detected, an option left out. This would therefore mean your detecting apparatus is not good enough.

No. Learner. If the god exists, but cannot be detected, then it cannot do anything that we can detect, or it would be detected.

Or… as asked above, are you indeed arguing about a god that starts the universe and is never ever seen again and has no impact on humanity of any kind until the day it switches off the machine? Is that the Christian god?

I have been arguing (as have others, I believe) regarding a god defined by the Christians, which is one who interacts with humans. You keep making hints that your god doesn’t do that. In which case, it clearly is not the christian god, so could you define it, please?

 

[Rhea]

You must assume I'm talking about Theists, as I mentioned in other posts, but for clarity as you ask, theists.

Now, you know, don’t you, that “theists” have many, many different gods?
So are you talking about Hades here? Or the Coyote Trickster?

 

[atrib]

There's no difference between god that can't be detected and a god that doesn't exist when it come to the same method for detection - the means to detect, depending on the limits of the detection apparatus. And if a god does in fact exist but is still not detected, an option left out. This would therefore mean your detecting apparatus is not good enough.

It could also mean that your claimed god does not exist. Which appears to be a vastly more likely possibility, given that a god has never been detected. Why did you ignore this possibility?

A god can only interact with humans using four fundamental forces. We have the means to detect and quantify these interactions, and have been doing so for a long time. Not once have we detected any gods. Not once have we detected any phenomena that would require a god to explain it. If your god exists, it doesn't interact with its creation. Which means it is no different from a god that doesn't exist.

 

[atrib]

Really? Is it because its hard to detect , therefore you can't tell what it's actually doing, and yet ... it is believed dark matter does have some affect to the its mirror opposite, apparently?

Check out the link The evidence against materialism. A good method we currently have at the moment.

How about you summarize what you think is so compelling there, rather than expect anyone to watch a 30 minute video from a known creationist hack.

He is not going to do that, because the video does not say what he claims it says. I don't think he has watched the video, or that he understood the content if he did.

He had posted this same video earlier, and I had debunked his claims. I even included my comments from my earlier post in this thread, but he just ignored them again. Which speaks volumes about his personal integrity, or lack thereof.

I recall you said that once before, you were so sure of it. And when I did, I said luckily no one made any bets t.. because they would have lost a few dollars. I'm a slow poster, but don't make any bets.

(that'll be my next post before anything else, and I just noticed. I'll correct your intellectual dishonesty #839, a must)

Can you please fucking point us to the timestamp on the video where this person demonstrates that minds can exist without material brains? You can't, because the video does not make that claim. Not once does the video even reference a mind existing without an underlying material brain, and all his examples talk about human brains that are made out of matter - you either misunderstood what the video states, or you are intentionally lying. Which is it?

You can't even summarize what the video says, as several people have asked you to do. Did you watch the video? Did you understand what it said?

 

[blastula]

God appears visually only in the last days.

According to your Bible, God showed his backside to the prophet Moses, and later God resided for over 30 years in western Asia before flying off into the sky.

 

[Jarhyn]

I have reviewed and commented on this link before. This does not support the idea that souls can exist independent of material brains: My comments can be found here, and are repeated below:
Why are you repeating shit that has been debunked already?

You got to give me a little more than that, rather than your personal opinion. Nice try... you debunked zilch.

Again..
Check out the link The evidence against materialism. A good method we currently have at the moment.

We don't claim its absolute, it's a working progress. Testing and testing.

Show me the fucking timecode on the video where the claim is made that souls can exist independent of material brains. The video does not say what you think it says.

I have been over this video before. Why did you not include the comments I have already made on the video? Fucking dishonest behavior!

I mean, if Learner wants to discuss the concept of the Graph Identity Soul, I could discuss that all day long.

Interestingly "graph identities", or henceforth "souls" to use the non-descriptive term, are perfectly capable of existing without being instantiated as an operational mechanism

To make things a little easier, I think it's better to pick a slightly smaller soul, and then understand that this generalizes to any bigger soul:

Let's look at the soul of a basic transistor: I can draw this out on paper. Any element which acts, fundamentally, as "a and b" shares this soul. I can give a set of water pipes with a physical switch operated by water pressure this soul as easily as I can implement it in electronic media.

I can map out its truth, and it's truth IS it's soul.

Souls do not need material brains to exist as souls... They just need material brains to "live".

That said, this means there is nothing special about our souls.

A soul is merely traversed between states of "revealed/seen/implemented/realized" and "hypothetical", and cannot be "created" nor "destroyed" any more than the number five is destroyed when you subtract 2 from fiv things to create 3.

In many ways they are "imaginary" after the tradition of "existing as pure image" and that image may be instantiated OR NOT! But they are, in fact, imaginary this way even when they are out of "pure hypothetical" territory, even when viewing the genuine article of a machine they describe.

This also means that souls can be copied, modified, shared, and brought from pure hypothetical into image, and then also from image to instantiation or "functional image".

This means that it is not possible to destroy or create a soul; it is only possible to relegate it back to or recover it from "the void".

In the same way that imaginary numbers are important and meaningful, so too is the soul. It's just as imaginary as the square root of -1, and just as important to consider and apply.

 

[atrib]

I'll cease it here, before it becomes a toing and froing - you have a point of view, fair enough..

I am from a working class backgound. I was one of those kids, that loved school dinners lol, speaking od dinners I smell burning.

There is no shame in not knowing stuff. It is impossible for a single human to know everything about everything that humans as a group know. But if you want to challenge skeptics, you have to educate yourself on what they say. You can't just make up stuff.

 

[Elixir]

The second part. But how would one know, this couldn't be applied to atheists?

No. Here's the second part:

"no superstitious believer is going to be disabused of their delusion by an Internet forum discussion pointing out the vacuity of their argument for the existence of the object of their superstition."

There is no "object of [the atheist's] superstition. Certainly not in the realm of deities
THEY'RE ATHEISTS.
Maybe they believe in Santa Claus, but not Creator Gods.

 

[Jarhyn]

The second part. But how would one know, this couldn't be applied to atheists?

No. Here's the second part:

"no superstitious believer is going to be disabused of their delusion by an Internet forum discussion pointing out the vacuity of their argument for the existence of the object of their superstition."

There is no "object of [the atheist's] superstition. Certainly not in the realm of deities
THEY'RE ATHEISTS.
Maybe they believe in Santa Claus, but not Creator Gods.

Oh spare me. We have a couple threads now in "philosophical/other" where a number of folks are arguing hard determinism completely "atheistically". There are superstitious atheists whose superstition amounts to the same thing, except instead of giving their god a mind, they don't even give him that, they just pretend "causal necessity" when they utter it is somehow different in it's operational position in their cage of belief than "god's divine plan".

 

[Elixir]

What are the objects of those atheists’ superstitions? In the realm of Creator deities?

Godzes? If so I wouldn’t call them atheists.

I not really interested by determinism arguments so maybe I’m not getting what you’re saying.

 

[atrib]

Souls do not need material brains to exist as souls... They just need material brains to "live".

How does one detect a "dead" human soul, and how is a "dead" human soul different from a human soul that is "alive"?
What is a soul, and how do we go about detecting human souls?

I honestly did not understand most of what you said, and I am trying to figure it out.

 

[bilby]

Let me offer evidence of another belief and see if you accept the facts of evidence I offer is valid or if I'm just being illogical

Of course you're being illogical. You believe that there is an elephant in my fridge.

F1 Refrigerators exist
F2 I own a refrigerator
F3 Refrigerators contain things
F4 Chickens are things

I have chicken in the fridge. (non living)

What are the possibilties, if someone actually claims to have elephant in the fridge? Very little descriptive clarity, provided by you, on the state of the elephant.

Possiblity for such a claim if one dares to make...
Elephant steaks in the fridge?

All African elephants are included in Appendix I of CITES, except for the populations of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, which are included in Appendix II.

All Asian elephants are currently listed in Appendix I of CITES

Cites sighted at CITES site:
https://cites.org/eng/news/Current_...vory_under_CITES_Proposals_CITES_CoP17_200716

 

[Jarhyn]

Souls do not need material brains to exist as souls... They just need material brains to "live".

How does one detect a "dead" human soul, and how is a "dead" human soul different from a human soul that is "alive"?
What is a soul, and how do we go about detecting human souls?

I honestly did not understand most of what you said, and I am trying to figure it out.

"Dead" is not a meaningful concept with relationship to "soul". You can't kill 5 by subtracting 2 from a quantity of 5. That's not how identity works.

"How does one detect a "dead" circuit diagram, and how is a "dead" circuit diagram different from a circuit diagram that is "alive"? What is a Circuit Diagram and how do we go about detecting Circuit Diagrams?"

"circuit diagram" is just the name we gave for a particular form of soul for a particular form of thing. A live "circuit diagram" is, in fact, the circuit! It is it's own identity as much as the diagram identified it.

 

[atrib]

Souls do not need material brains to exist as souls... They just need material brains to "live".

How does one detect a "dead" human soul, and how is a "dead" human soul different from a human soul that is "alive"?
What is a soul, and how do we go about detecting human souls?

I honestly did not understand most of what you said, and I am trying to figure it out.

"Dead" is not a meaningful concept with relationship to "soul". You can't kill 5 by subtracting 2 from a quantity of 5. That's not how identity works.

You stated that souls need material brains to "live", which would logically lead one to believe that there are souls that do not "live". Your answer sheds no light on the subject.
And you haven't told me what a soul is and how I can go about detecting human souls.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

No surprise to that answer. But do YOU understand the standard model can't tell you zilch? It can't tell you if there's ANY possibilty for a god to exist or not, soley based on the model. I would have thought it wise to think, and just say "we don't know, or couldn't know." Have an agnostic approach, once in a while.

So it's worthless because it can't tell us if the moon is made of cheese. Brilliant.

 

[Jarhyn]

Souls do not need material brains to exist as souls... They just need material brains to "live".

How does one detect a "dead" human soul, and how is a "dead" human soul different from a human soul that is "alive"?
What is a soul, and how do we go about detecting human souls?

I honestly did not understand most of what you said, and I am trying to figure it out.

"Dead" is not a meaningful concept with relationship to "soul". You can't kill 5 by subtracting 2 from a quantity of 5. That's not how identity works.

You stated that souls need material brains to "live", which would logically lead one to believe that there are souls that do not "live". Your answer sheds no light on the subject.
And you haven't told me what a soul is and how I can go about detecting human souls.

Human souls do. Let's imagine I pull out a piece of paper and draw a new circuit on it, a diagram of something that has never been instantiated or built in all of this universe.

It does not live. Not anywhere. But it is not dead, either. It just isn't alive.

And mea culpa for the edit but:

"How does one detect a "dead" circuit diagram, and how is a "dead" circuit diagram different from a circuit diagram that is "alive"? What is a Circuit Diagram and how do we go about detecting Circuit Diagrams?"

"circuit diagram" is just the name we gave for a particular form of soul for a particular form of thing. A live "circuit diagram" is, in fact, the circuit! It is it's own identity as much as the diagram identified it.

 

[Drew2008]

Any reply to my case for life on exoplanets?


Let me offer evidence of another belief and see if you accept the facts of evidence I offer is valid or if I'm just being illogical.

What would count as proof evidence life exists on planets outside our solar system?

F1. The universe exists

No universe no planets, stars, solar systems exist. For there to be life outside of our solar system a universe has to exist. The existence of the universe is evidence life exists on exoplanets.

F2. Planets and solar systems exist.

The fact planets exist in our solar system was for the longest time the only evidence we had from which we could infer other solar systems existed around other stars.

F3. The fact life exists on a planet revolving around a star

Of course. Why should we think it exists only on our planet. The fact it exists exponentially raises the possibility it exists on other planets.

All these things are true but it doesn't guarantee life exists elsewhere. All these facts are necessary for the claim to be true and they qualify as evidence in favor of the belief claim there is life on other planets. Is it irrational to believe life might exist on other planets?

Just three facts no leprechauns, pixies, fairy dust or loch ness monsters.