Evidence for God from Science

I am basing the following ideas mostly on Vox Dei's book "The Irrational Atheist" which was both reviewed by and recommended by Rich Deem. Loved it.

For me, the big 3 all fall under the same umbrella of "unbeliever". Underneath this canopy are the simplest class of unbelievers, who are simply called 'unbelievers': people who have never really thought of the subject of theology or God and just coast through their merry life as though in a dream, totally unaware of such matters.

Agnostics are those, again, under the umbrella of unbelievers who simply don't believe there is a God based on X, Y and Z reasons. They are like Renee Descartes, they want to be able to prove things beyond not a reasonable doubt, but any shadow of a doubt. Whenever I meet an agnostic, I suggest this website to them, where we have pretty much done just that.

And atheists are....how do I say this in G-rated terms? I can't, so I won't.

So, removing all the boring ideology behind disbelief, the classification of unbelievers ultimately comes down to temperament, good-humor, disposition, and my favorite word, deference. The more of these traits you have, the closer you are to agnostic. The less you have, the closer you are to atheist. And if you have no idea what the heck I just said, then you're a simple unbeliever

RickD wrote:

Byblos wrote:

neo-x wrote:It's not about being a fan of this or that. At best these take you to a deist God.

How do you figure? Rather, it would necessarily lead to a timeless, immaterial, omnipotent, omniscient, unique, and intelligent entity.

neo-x wrote:you need faith at some point and that is where logic won't help. Does logic help that a man walked on water or rose up from the grave or made water to wine or raised the dead? do you have logic for that?

I agree with you there, that's a matter of revelation. But you gotta start somewhere ...

I agree Byblos. That's what I'm saying. And,that's what the logical arguments for God, are saying.

neo wrote:
Anyway, to the main point, not everyone who doesn't believe in God is a fool...

That wasn't the main point Neo.

Storyteller asked about people who "categorically state there is no God".
There's a difference between "categorically stating there is no God", and simply "not believing in God".

I'm not saying that everyone who doesn't believe, is a fool. Scripture doesn't say that. Scripture says "the fool says there is no God".

Yeah, no disagreement, there. I apologize, I misunderstood you.

Kenny wrote: When proof is required, it is required by the one making the claim. Theism is a claim; atheism is usually the default position.

This is all fine and good when talking about Gnostic Theism and Agnostic Atheism, but each of these positions carry their respective baggage. Agnostic Atheism is only the default position when you are making no claims -- in essence, if you're claiming either that the claim is unnecessary to explain a given issue or that the domain the claim explains isn't worth considering. Obviously if I were to go around saying "I don't know anything, but you should share my beliefs" no one would care what I believed or not. But atheists typically don't do that. They often argue that it's unreasonable to think God exists because God explains nothing that needs explaining. You can certainly hold that belief, but you're implicitly claiming disinterest towards number of domains that most atheists, in fact, claim to know something about.

Take the origin of the universe for instance. You are completely free to assert that it doesn't matter whether the universe is caused or not. "Why do I need to answer this?" the agnostic asks. This is what "burden of proof" is about. It's why no one bothers seriously positing invisible spaghetti monsters. Why does it matter if it's made of spaghetti, or even exists at all? Until you can answer that, I don't need to take the FSM seriously. But atheists often do make claims about the origin of the universe, such as "the universe came from nothing." That's not only a gnostic claim, it's also an atheistic claim -- nothingness is the first cause, and nothingness is obviously not God. Very different from just saying "I don't know."

Or take notions of the afterlife. You are completely free to assert that you won't concern yourself about what happens after death, because you don't know one way or the other. But atheists often argue that nothing happens after we die. That's a claim to knowledge. How do you know once you've died you'll never experience anything again? If you're not there to experience it, trillions of years can go by in a blink of an eye. If everything is random, whatever conditions caused you to happen, surely they'll happen again after an infinite period of time. There's a plethora of things that can happen, so the only certain thing you can say is "I don't know."

The problem is, no matter how you approach these domains, you're ultimately left with two choices: either ignore the issue because you don't know, or start trying to make the strongest explanation you can. With the former, no knowledge is possible. With the latter, you too have the burden of proof.

patrick wrote:

Kenny wrote: When proof is required, it is required by the one making the claim. Theism is a claim; atheism is usually the default position.

This is all fine and good when talking about Gnostic Theism and Agnostic Atheism, but each of these positions carry their respective baggage. Agnostic Atheism is only the default position when you are making no claims -- in essence, if you're claiming either that the claim is unnecessary to explain a given issue or that the domain the claim explains isn't worth considering. Obviously if I were to go around saying "I don't know anything, but you should share my beliefs" no one would care what I believed or not. But atheists typically don't do that. They often argue that it's unreasonable to think God exists because God explains nothing that needs explaining. You can certainly hold that belief, but you're implicitly claiming disinterest towards number of domains that most atheists, in fact, claim to know something about.

Take the origin of the universe for instance. You are completely free to assert that it doesn't matter whether the universe is caused or not. "Why do I need to answer this?" the agnostic asks. This is what "burden of proof" is about. It's why no one bothers seriously positing invisible spaghetti monsters. Why does it matter if it's made of spaghetti, or even exists at all? Until you can answer that, I don't need to take the FSM seriously. But atheists often do make claims about the origin of the universe, such as "the universe came from nothing." That's not only a gnostic claim, it's also an atheistic claim -- nothingness is the first cause, and nothingness is obviously not God. Very different from just saying "I don't know."

Or take notions of the afterlife. You are completely free to assert that you won't concern yourself about what happens after death, because you don't know one way or the other. But atheists often argue that nothing happens after we die. That's a claim to knowledge. How do you know once you've died you'll never experience anything again? If you're not there to experience it, trillions of years can go by in a blink of an eye. If everything is random, whatever conditions caused you to happen, surely they'll happen again after an infinite period of time. There's a plethora of things that can happen, so the only certain thing you can say is "I don't know."

The problem is, no matter how you approach these domains, you're ultimately left with two choices: either ignore the issue because you don't know, or start trying to make the strongest explanation you can. With the former, no knowledge is possible. With the latter, you too have the burden of proof.

Now that I read what I wrote back then, I should have worded it differently so my POV is better understood.

IMO The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. This goes for Atheist, or Theist; or even in situations outside of the God question (Scientist, prosecutor, etc.)

If the Atheist goes around saying God doesn’t exist, and the theists simply says; I don’t believe you, the atheist is making a claim and has the burden of proof. If the atheist believes God doesn’t exist, but he keeps his opinions to himself, he has nothing to prove to nobody but himself.

If the Theists goes around saying God exist, and the atheists says “I don’t believe you”, the Theist is making the claim and has the burden of proof. If the Theists believes God exist but he keeps his opinions to himself he has nothing to prove to nobody but himself.

Of course if you have two people and they are both making claims, they both have a burden of proof. if you have two people and nobody is making claims; you have no conversation.

Ken