Is god an objective reality?

Firstly, the claim that God exists is a claim about an objective reality, whether that claim is true or not. We are discussing an objective being here.Of course it is possible that God is an objective reality but the question is how we would know. What criteria does an object need to possess before we judge it to be objectively real? I would suggest that the most important quality would be repeated observability. One person observing God is not very convincing, as they could just be experiencing a subjective delusion. The observation must be repeatable, not just for theists, but for anyone and furthermore, the results of these observations should match up and agree with each other.Of course, the God hypothesis has no such objective (in the third sense presented above) evidence, only subjective claims that differ almost as widely as the number of believers. Without such the evidence from such observations, I don't see how we can judge that God has any objective existence, indeed, it is extremely suggestive that he is merely subjective.

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Mutate and Survive

I'm not especially convinced by your analogy.Both of the observers can at least see the curtain. They have presumably observed other curtains and are familiar with the idea that they are opaque and thus capable of concealing objects. This makes the hypothesis that someone is behind the curtain much more convincing. I'm not sure sure what observable real-world phenomenon is meant to be analogous to the curtain in your example. Where is God hiding?It is probably also worth noting that the seeming stricture in your example is that neither man is allowed to just look behind the curtain like a normal person would. This is completely arbitrary and yet without this stricture, the whole allegory breaks down.Also, you have a human being hiding behind your curtain. Both observers are presumably familiar with humans. The hypothesis that humans (in general) are objectively real is easily confirmed and the observation is repeatable. This makes the hypothesis that there is a human behind the curtain much more reasonable than one that invokes God, since we are unable to confirm that gods (in general) exist. This seems to assume that God's powers of hiding are absolute, another unmerited assumption. That you can construct a scenario in which God remains flawlessly hidden unless he chooses to reveal himself, does not mean that his existence should be considered significantly more likely. One could construct such a scenario about Russell's Teapot or an invisible angel. Only positive evidence, available to any observer raises the chances of the object being real. I am not suggesting that I have absolute knowledge that he doesn't exist, but rather that the most parsimonious (and in my opinion, the most convincing) explanation for the lack of evidence for God is that he does not objectively exist.All I am suggesting here is that in order to claim with any degree of confidence that something has an objective existence, we must first have objective evidence for it. Without such caution, we might as well believe in Russell's Teapot or any other evidence-less proposition, just because it gives us comfort to do so.

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Mutate and Survive

Sorry. I just think that your analogy is a very bad fit for the situation. It ,most certainly does when this kind of weak evidence is the only kind available. You have no evidence other than subjective experience. That makes your God claim completely indistinguishable from subjective delusion for any other person. Even another person who also claims to have "sensed" God cannot know whether your god and their god are one and the same (oh, by the way, what "senses" exactly were involved in this observation?).Presenting exclusively subjective evidence for a supposedly objective being is completely useless because it does nothing to distinguish it from delusion.Further, you are assuming that God is able to remain flawlessly hidden unless he chooses to reveal himself, a further layer of unfounded assumption. Another assumption is that he wishes to do so.I would also like to point out that if this business of revealing himself to some whilst hiding himself from others is extremely poor behavior, inconsistent with a wise and benevolent being. I would not wish to worship such an entity. Yes and my first comment in this thread was to that effect. The point is that without God being universally observable we are left assessing the chances of the arguments "God is objectively real" and "God is merely subjective" being correct. However, it should be obvious that real things create real evidence by which they can be observed and re-observed. Claiming that God is an exception to this rule strongly suggests that he is imaginary. True, but in the absence of more convincing evidence, we are left comparing propositions about God's reality. All other things being equal, the more parsimonious explanation is to be favored. I am not saying that this automatically makes it correct, because that would be retarded, merely that explanations which build assumption upon assumption, as yours does, tend to be wrong. They also require more evidence for each assumption, leaving you digging yourself further and further in. In such an extreme case as the revelation of God's existence I'm not sure that would be sufficient to convince me. I think I might have myself checked in for a psych evaluation, since, once again, there is nothing here to separate this experience from delusion. That strikes me as OK in regards to ordinary every day experiences, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.In order to convince me of a claim so unusual and extreme, I think I would require independent verification, just to reassure me that I wasn't losing my marbles.The problem would be even more pronounced for an outside observer hearing me describe my experience. What reason would they have to believe me?Your little conspiracy theory about God choosing to remain hidden sometimes, reveal himself other times reads like desperate rationalization and is the kind of argument that can be constructed for absolutely anything (faeries are invisible to people who don't believe in faeries, etc.). It does nothing to differentiate between reality and delusion and is therefore unhelpful.

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Mutate and Survive

Fair enough in so far as it goes, but it does nothing to make a case for God's objectivity.Myself, I wouldn't be satisfied with that level of evidence. I would want to ask some sort of question equivalent to "Did you just see what I saw?" before placing any weight on such an innately unlikely proposition as God.May all your delusions be beneficent ones, because if you are willing to accept whatever you "sense" as being real, I wouldn't like to be around you should you ever fall prey to some more dangerous idea.

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Mutate and Survive

On the contrary, it very much does make such a case, albeit not a comprehensive and conclusive case; but then one cannot prove a universal negative, so that shouldn't be surprising. You have no evidence. Your only poor excuse for for evidence is a vague notion you have cooked up in your head. That is entirely compatible with God being imaginary indeed, it is more compatible with such a scenario since real things have a tendency to leave verifiable evidence of their existence.A subjective thing is something that only exists in someone's mind. Your "evidence" only exists within your mind. Do you not see a correlation here?As for the millions who believe in God, do they all "sense" him the way you do? If so, do they necessarily "sense" the same God? How would you know? Do you imagine that being sober makes you immune to delusion? How do you distinguish between delusion and divine presence? Moreover, how do you do so when you have no means of outside verification? I would suggest that your means of deciding this is simply wishful thinking. CS, I want to make absolutely clear that I don't think that you will or that you are more likely to suffer from mental illness. You seem fairly stable to me. What I am saying is that in the event that you should come under the influence of some dangerous delusion, the consequences would likely be worse, given that you are willing to accept such a frighteningly low burden of proof for ideas that come into your head.Edited by Granny Magda, : Fixed code.

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Mutate and Survive