Choosing a faith

That's okay.
I will continue to maintain the same analogy against such an idea:

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It's like seeing the results of a dice and we don't know how many sides it has.
It's rolled over and over again... over hundreds of thousands of rolls... and it's always been an even-but-random distribution between the values 1 through 6.
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You can say "Stile believes in materialism that the next roll will still be between 1 and 6 - assuming a 6-sided die is all we have!"
You can say "GDR believes in a supernatural intelligence that the next roll could even be a letter of the alphabet!"

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Such sentences can be constructed in the English language. But I think it's a bit odd to use the same word to describe such obviously different ways of coming to a conclusion.I think saying "GDR believes..." is fine in this context, but the other statement should be changed to:"Stile uses the historical evidence to predict that the next roll will still be between 1 and 6 - assuming a 6 sided die is all we have!"I don't even have to be "materialistic" to do this. I certainly can do this, as it seems the most reasonable in this situation, and still believe in God.
I can even believe that God provided the die that's being rolled.
There's just no evidence or "reasonable logic" to support doing such.I still don't even get the point of believing God "kicked off the process" of evolution or not.
Who cares?The process exists - it appears to be fully natural. It doesn't seem to have any reason to suggest that any part of it is required to be supernatural.
So why care if God kicked it off or not?What happens if God didn't kick it off?
Is God not strong enough to exist without planning for humans from the beginning?
Are humans not strong enough to consider a God that exists that doesn't care about humans?

The real argument is over the claims of what Jesus did, not if he existed. The same for Joseph Smith.

The revealer of reality is the one true god of this universe: physics, and it reveals its secrets to us humans. The same way you know I am right. It threatens all life in the universe in all things. Such a monster would destroy causality and take the entire universe with it.

I use the same argument with my ghost hunter friend. If any of it were true, if there was anything supernatural or paranormal, it would have to overthrow the laws of physics. Causality would be destroyed and the universe with it.

If you're not trying to pretend that both sides are on equal footings then stop saying "We both have evidence," because we don't both have evidence. We have evidence and you have "something else." There's no point seeking rhetorical arguments that will suddenly transform your religious views into evidence because that just isn't possible. I think you meant to say that philosophical evidence and scientific evidence are two very different things, and this is true. One is evidence and one isn't. You haven't yet defined philosophical evidence, but it was clear from the beginning that it's not actual evidence. You're just playing word games by putting a modifier on the front of "evidence."
​ You seem to be on both sides of the fence, but most importantly your quote doesn't explain what philosophical evidence is, so there's nothing useful I can garner from all you said.
​ Ya think? No, scientific evidence does not go beyond empirical evidence. Scientific evidence, by definition, is empirical evidence, i.e., based upon observation.The theoretical side of science does go beyond the empirical. For example, it was theorized that the Higgs Boson existed before empirical evidence for its existence was found. Once this evidence was produced it meant that the Higgs Boson was no longer theoretical but empirical. Until you can provide a concrete definition of "philosophical evidence" you should definitely not be giving it a moment's thought. Scientific evidence is what matters. That religion is subjective is why there are so many religions in the world. That science is empirical is why there's only one Boyle's Law, one Theory of Relativity, one germ theory of disease. I responded to this claim once already and you didn't respond. Now you're just repeating this claim yet again as if no one had ever responded to it. This is what you do, over and over. It's why people get frustrated at you and why you leave because you don't like the treatment that you yourself are instigating.
​ Pasting the "subjective" label on what we say does not make it so. We have evidence for what we say and you don't. You keep forgetting this, not just from one post to the next but from one paragraph to the next. Our replicated evidence-based conclusions are tentative, not subjective. Ockham's razor. Why are you postulating the existence of something for which there is no evidence? You need to demonstrate what you're postulating experimentally. For example, mix hydrogen and oxygen and provide a spark. Do this once in the presence of an "external intelligence" and again in the absence of an "external intelligence." Observe whether there are any differences in what happens. Any differences would be evidence that the presence of an "external intelligence" can have an influence on natural processes. Before you start researching how an "external intelligence" came to exist you have to produce some evidence that it even exists.--Percy

This is last Thursdayism. You seem to think your inability to make the case yourself is due to a weakness of expression on your part, but that's not true. It's that there's no case to be made. It doesn't matter whether it's you or <fill in the blank, e.g., Chris Barrigar, C. S. Lewis, etc.>, nothing can change that. And yet if you ignore the material world it will quickly convince you how real it is, even killing you if you insist on taking it to that point. But we can ignore all aspects of everyone's non-material or spiritual beliefs and suffer no consequences whatsoever. That you're an atheist when it comes to the Flying Spaghetti Monster was kind of the point of its invention.--Percy

I see Taq has responded, but I haven't read it yet. My response is to quote John McEnroe: "You cannot be serious." Like Jesus, Joseph Smith is believed by his followers to be a great prophet and worker of miracles, but unlike Jesus there is unimpeachable evidence that he was a real person who actually existed.The usual response to this is that Joseph Smith (or any founder of any other religion) was nothing like Jesus, as if he were the template, as if true religions can only be founded by people born of virgins who had a final dinner with their apostles before being arrested and crucified.--Percy

Sure I'm fine with that. Of course. But you are criticizing a belief that I don't hold. I'm not saying that we throw out any empirical or even theoretical science. Yes, I think that God is responsible for life. I also enjoy the little bit of science that I can understand.However, I do think that I am more than just my brain. I realize that you can come up with opinions based on what is observed, but it is my premise that there is more going on than can be observed.

May I recommend a book. Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist SonTony Campolo is an Evangelical Christian, somewhat on the liberal side. You will probably see him as having views somewhat like yours.Bart Campolo is his son. He was a Christian, but he left Christianity. He is still very much a humanist.The book has alternating chapters by the two of them and where they disagree.Bart has been through the kind of issues that concern you. He has thought a lot about them. He still considers himself to be religious, but in the sense of natural religion. He now sees the natural world as all that there is.I don't know whether he will persuade you. But I think you will find that he challenges you. So give it a try.I still have the book on my Kindle, and can discuss it if you want to start a thread about it.

You eventually arrived at "subjective conclusions" after beginning with "We both have evidence" and "philosophical evidence" and trying to draw a false equivalence. Can we finally at last get a concession from you that scientific conclusions, (theories) that are arrived at through research and study, experiments, observations, replication, peer review and consensus are not in any way "subjective conclusions"? That they, to the best of human ability, correspond to actual material reality while your religious beliefs do not even come close? That to talk of both having evidence is absurd? How would you ever come to know about anything unobservable? Consider other unobservable things that were once believed real, like Thor and Zeus. They now have no believers at all. What is different about your belief in the unobservable? Before you go citing the Bible and the patristic fathers, while fewer writings might have survived you can be sure that people also wrote about Thor and Zeus with just as much faithful fever.--Percy

And in six months GDR will think he has another revelation and start another topic and we will rehash it all once again. He will again realize his arguments are worthless and slink away again. Rinse and repeat

Not true.A couple of quotes from this site that covers it extensively. history for atheists

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It is assumed in much anti-theistic polemic that the Bible has traditionally always been interpreted literally. A lot of criticism of believers is based on how irrational, impossible and anti-scientific such a reading of the Bible has to be and how the current literalism of many fundamentalist Christians simply reflects how the Bible has always been read, with non-literal interpretations simply a modern rear-guard attempt to reconcile the Bible with current understandings of the world. But this is not true. In fact, fundamentalist Biblical literalism is a very recent, mostly Protestant and largely American affair. Historically, things were much more complex.

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Further down in a reply to Dawkins there is this:

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What all these statements seem to imply is that the contradictions and immoral events within religious scriptures have been missed or ignored by all those stupid, irrational religious people throughout the centuries who were enslaved to a literal readings of their scriptures, until the bright, saving light of the Enlightenment and reason brought them to light to reveal how utterly stupid and wrong they really were. That is the normal narrative anyway. Dawkins’ quote in particular implies, in saying that the “irritated theologians” don’t take Genesis literally “anymore”, that until recently that is what just what they did. In fact, surprisingly, the opposite is true. Completely literal interpretation of both the Bible and the Koran, only arose within the last couple of centuries – for the Bible, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in particular. Up until then, for most of history from late antiquity, right through the Middle Ages to the early modern period and modern era, a “literal” interpretation was only one of the multiple “senses” of scripture: only one of the ways in which a verse or story could be read and interpreted. Even then, the “literal” reading was a far cry away from modern fundamentalist views.

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Just to add to what I already posted when I ran out of time. That is really only true for those who try and read the Bible literally. However, I do agree that we can learn a lot about how God has created through the use of science. Another point is that Biblical literalism first came into vogue as a result of the reformation. Luther rebelled against the church, which was largely corrupt, and which to that time had been essentially the body that interpreted all things Christian including the Bible.In place of the church the Bible was inserted and they wanted something that would be an absolute authoritative voice of God. That then evolved into reading it literally as an absolute essentially as if it had been dictated by God.In recent years it has been primarily, but not solely, an American thing. Fortunately, that is slowly fading.

I've read that. Bart Campolo and I have had two zoom conversations. His Dad was very ill recently. One specific thing that I respected about Bart is that he never encouraged me to drop my faith or throw God away, as our Texas curmudgeon suggested. He is a humanist to the core, yet understands the tradition and dogma that is organized religion.Tony's bio lists him as a philosopher before it mentions theologian. Tony was one of Bill Clinton's spiritual advisors. Tony Campolo

The comments at this blog say it all, in my mind. Here are four:Taken from About History For Atheists

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Getting history right is crucial, and no one – neither the religious nor the irreligious – should get a free ride when it comes to instrumentalizing the past. Tim O’Neill’s forthright blog does a valuable job in keeping us all honest, and reminding us that historical evidence rarely behaves as one might want it to.” – Professor Tim Whitmarsh, A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge

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“A brilliantly erudite blog that stands sentinel against the wish-fulfillment and tendentiousness to which atheists, on occasion, can be no less prey than believers” – Tom Holland, best-selling history writer

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“Tim O’Neill’s blog is a fantastic place to turn for critical investigation of commonly-held assumptions about religion in the ancient world.” – Professor James F. McGrath, Butler University

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“Tim O’Neill is a known liar …. an asscrack …. a hack …. a tinfoil hatter …. stupid …. a crypto-Christian, posing as an atheist …. a pseudo-atheist shill for Christian triumphalism [and] delusionally insane.” – Dr. Richard Carrier Ph.D., unemployed blogger It figures Carrier might have said those comments. He is like Theodoric.Oh and by the way, Theo....as to why mythicists are as much liars as are apologists?Carriers net worth from the lecture circuit: $6 million dollars. How is he any different from an apologist?

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Among the myths and pseudo-historical theories that this blog tackles are:

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That there was no historical Jesus at all and that Christianity arose out of a belief in a purely mythic/celestial being, not a historical Jewish preacher

That Christianity caused the “Dark Ages” by systematically destroying almost all ancient Greco-Roman learning,

That Christians burned down the Great Library of Alexandria and that Hypatia of Alexandria was murdered because of a Christian hatred of science

That pagan Greco_Roman society was rational and scientific and fairly non-religious and was on the brink of a scientific and technological revolution

That Constantine was a crypto-pagan who adopted Christianity as a cynical political ploy (and he personally created the Bible)

That Christianity somehow held back technology and we’d all be living on Mars by now if it wasn’t for the “Dark Ages”

That Medieval Europe was a theocracy ruled by the Church, which wielded supreme power and killed anyone who questioned any aspect of its teachings

That scientists were oppressed during the Middle Ages and science stagnated completely until “the Renaissance”

That “the Inquisition” was a kind of Europe-wide medieval Gestapo and that the medieval Church was an all-powerful totalitarian theocracy

That Giordano Bruno was a wise and brave astronomer and cosmologist who was burned at the stake because the Church hated science

That the Galileo Affair was a straightforward case of religion ignoring evidence and trying to suppress scientific advancement

That Pope Pius XII was a friend and ally of the Nazis who turned a blind eye to the Holocaust and helped Nazis escape justice

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Edited by Phat, : added quote