Subjective Evidence of Gods

Over in the Peanut Gallery the never-ending inductive atheism debate continues......But Chuck77 has specifically cited subjective evidence as something that should be taken into account. Nor is he alone in advocating this form of "evidence" in this context. So I would like to start a thread specifically on the nature and validity of subjective evidence as applied to belief in gods.I would like to ask the following:1) What subjective evidence in favour of the existence of gods is there? Can someone provide some actual examples of this form of evidence?2) Is subjective evidence limited to entities that can be empirically detected or not?3) On what basis (aside from belief) is the cause of these subjective experiences attributed to supernatural entities rather than to fluctuations in the matrix, undetectable telepathic aliens manipulating our minds or any other conceivable cause of such things?4) Is belief itself a form of evidence on which we can justify belief?

That you find the bible personally convincing isn't evidence that God exists or anything else.Subjective evidence is just a way of conflating deep personal belief with a form of evidence.

Hey GDR Some beliefs have a firmer evidential basis than others. Well I would argue not. As per Inductive AtheismIt may well be the basis in the sense that it is the reason that a particular belief is held. But that is not the same a form of evidence is it? That good evidence leads to strong belief often leads to the mistaken conclusion that a strong belief must be based on valid evidence. That man is a moral animal is an observable phenomenon. To ask why man is a moral animal is a very valid question.But to take a question that demands an evidenced answer (such as why man is moral) and then cite the phenomenon that requires explanation as evidence for your subjectively preferrred cause (i.e. the Christian God) ultimately amounts to conflating deep personal belief with a form of evidence.

Not at all. Some methods of knowing and forms of evidence are just demonstrably superior to others. For example if you want to know when the next solar eclipse will occur you could:A) Close your eyes, meditate and just seek to feel when this will next occurB) Enter a dream state and seek direct guidance from the spiritsC) Open the Bible/Koran/Torah/Vedas and seek inspiration from the text as to when this will happenD) Read sheeps entrails or tea leaves or cloud formations or gaze into a crystal ball or whateverE) Build a giant temple where you can pray to the Sun god and the moon god to ask them when they will next battle each otherF) Observe the motions of the planets, construct a theoretical framework as to their motions, verify it through successful prediction and then use it to predict when the next eclipse will occurNow you may say "But predicting eclipses is nothing like the sort of knowledge I am talking about" but this would miss the point. The point is that if the form of evidence you are advocating is unable to show itself as leading to conclusions that can be remotely trusted then the only reason you are calling it "evidence" at all is because it supports your belief.In effect the belief and the "evidence" that supports it are just extensions of each other with nothing to link the two things aside from your conviction that one supports the other. It amounts to citing belief itself as a form of evidence. I read that book too. It's a good book. But not all beliefs are equally evidenced. In fact some beliefs (e.g. biblical creationism) are just evidentially invalid. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Well I asked for that!! Of course you can. But that isn't really the point.If that which you are citing as evidence can never ever be demonstrated to lead to conclusions that can be verified then on what basis do you think this form of "evidence" is remotely capable of leading to conclusions that are ever going to be correct?Furthermore there is extensive evidence to suggest that the sort of subjectively derived conclusions about god that you are advocating are far more likely to be wrong than right. And you would be in extensive company. Humans have attributed god(s) as the cause of just about every phenomenon that has seemed mysterious and puzzling to them at one time or another. But in how many cases have these subjectively derived conclusions been correct. In how many cases have these subjectively derived conclusions regarding godly causes been wrong?The sort of evidence you are advocating has a 100% failure record! But we can examine the evidence that suggests that humans have a deep proclivity to invoke godly causes on the basis of subjective evidence when in fact there is no godly cause. The fact that we exist leads to questions that can be investigated. But I wouldn't call our existence evidence in and of itself of a particular conceivable cause. How can the same thing qualify as evidence for a whole raft of mutually exclusive alternatives? Sure. But the point is that not all evidence is equally valid and as a result not all beliefs are equally evidentially supported. We have good evidential reasons to consider some beliefs as more likely to be correct than others.And beliefs that are based on things like human imagination are very very unlikely to be correct.

The whole "chance" thing is a complete misapprehension which is beyond the scope of this thread. If this were true anyone could have "imagined" relativity. Einstein was a highly trained physicist whose knowledge combined with an intuitive grasp of the underlying logic of physical reality has been matched by few others. Newton and maybe Feynamn spring to mind as possible equals in this respect.So - No - relativity is not the result of subjective evidence. It is the result of scientific knowledge combined with deep insight, logic and then verifiable conclusions as per the scientific method. That humans are deeply prone to inventing gods for wholly human reasons that have nothing to do with the actual existence of gods is not a conclusion based on subjective evidence.That god(s) actually exist is a conclusion essentially derived from nothing more than treating deep conviction as a form of evidence. Not at all. I am citing empirical evidence and we can demonstrate that empirical evidence leads to reliable conclusions. Can you demonstrate that the subjective evidence you are citing in favour of god leads to reliable conclusions?If not the two conclusions are not evidentially equal. Really? On what basis?If this is true you should be able to give an example of subjective evidence of gods which is demonstrably correct.Meanwhile I can cite numerous examples of subjective evidence of gods which has been found to be entirely misleading and utterly worthless as a form of evidence. If something is so vague as to be able to be cited in support of a whole raft of mutually exclusive conclusions it cannot meaningfully be advocated as "evidence" for any of them.How can it be evidence for two things which contradict each other? Nothing can answer that including God. If God exists he will be sitting there wondering why it is he exists rather than nothing. How could it be otherwise?

If the ultimate question is - "Why is there something rather than nothing?" wouldn't God himself have to ask that same question?

Firstly - The idea that anyone scientific, especially Einstein himself, would describe his imaginings as "evidence" is preposterous. As much as anything Einstein's insight was to fore-go subjective notions of common sense and follow the math to wherever it led. This approach, based on the objectivity of mathematics, has yielded numerous subsequent results. From the discovery of anti-matter as predicted by Dirac to black holes and Hawking radiation. The idea that conclusions of God's existence based on subjective "evidence" are are remotely equivalent to mathematical extrapolations of known results is completely unfounded. But proof doesn't come into it.That humans are deeply prone to invoking supernatural entities to explain various phenomenon is empirically and reliably evidenced. That god(s) actually exist is entirely un-evidenced. Or poorly evidenced at best No. The subjective evidence you cite in favour of gods is demonstrably unreliable as compared to the evidence that suggests that humans can and will invoke supernatural answers to seemingly inexplicable questions.Not all forms of evidence are equally valid and thus not all conclusions are equally valid.

Firstly - Not really. What Einstein did to produce relativity was take to it's logical conclusion the common-sense-defying idea that the speed of light really is constant in the way that the mathematics of Maxwell's equations suggest it is.Secondly - The idea that the evidence on which Einstein developed relativity is remotely comparable to subjective evidence of gods is just utterly misfounded. And all those humans who throughout the ages have invoked now dismissed supernatural causes to seemingly otherwise inexplicable phenomena before you felt the same.Why do you think your reasoning or subjective evidence is any more reliable than theirs?The genuinely reliable evidence here strongly favours the idea that your conclusions are similar in nature to theirs.

But doesn't that built-on knowledge strongly suggest that invoking supernatural causes to observable phenomenon is a human trait that has absolutely nothing to do with the real cause of observable phenomenon?

This is not a million miles away from the sort of conclusion Robert Wright suggests as viable in The Evolution of God. So I get where you are coming from. But this approach does seem to have one fatal flaw. It seems that you have to first assume that God exists before the evidence fits the proposition. I am sure you have heard of Harold Camping. He first claimed that biblical Armageddon would occur in September 1994. Needless to say he was wrong. He famously claimed that the same end of times would occur on the 21st of May this year. Again wrong. His latest claim is for October 21 later this year. I for one won't be saying my goodbyes or anticipating that much will happen.Now this guy obviously has deep belief and a great deal of genuine conviction in the validity of his "evidence". But with this track record only a blithering imbecile or someone of unwavering faith in his predictions would take any conclusion made on the basis of this so called "evidence" remotely seriously.Why is this relevant here? Because the mistake this guy is making in comparison to most modern theists is to take what he deems to be "evidence" and use it to make falsifiable claims rather than unfalsifiable ones.But just because modern theists largely restrict themselves to making unfalsifiable claims on the basis of subjective evidence of gods doesn't mean there isn't a similar track record to consider. Every single testable claim humanity has ever made about gods on the basis of subjective evidence has been wrong. And we are talking about a lot of claims. All wrong.With this track record doesn't it take faith to conclude that subjective evidence of gods has any validity at all?

But only in the context of religion and god could it be advocated that the persistent failure of humanity to be right about something is indicative that we are on the path to truth about that something. But I haven't just assumed that gods don't exist in a way that is equivalent to the way that your position just assumes that they do.The conclusion that humans can and do invent gods is highly objectively evidenced. That humans are prone to believing in the existence of these invented entities is also highly objectively evidenced. There is also objective evidence pertaining to the psychological reasons humans exhibit this behaviour. So the conclusion that gods are imagined rather than real is not just a subjective assumption at all. That humans will invent, and believe in the existence of gods, for reasons that have nothing to do with the actuality of gods existing is not a subjective conclusion. No one can prove or disprove the existence of God but that doesn't mean all conclusions about God are based on equally subjective evidence. I think this a commonly held theistic misapprehension. Do you have any examples of the sort of evidence used to conclude that God exists leading to demonstrably reliable conclusions? No doubt pretty much every human throughout history who has ever ascribed conscious godly intent as the cause of a baffling natural phenomenon thought much the same way you do.And in every case tested to date they were wrong.

This thread is about the validity (or otherwise) of a particular form of evidence. If the track record of a particular form of evidence isn't the basis upon which it's validity must be judged I am absolutely baffled as to what is? That gods are more likely to be invented by humans rather than actually exist is based on:1) Objective empirical evidence pertaining to the ability and proclivity of humans to invent non-existant gods for various psychological reasons.2) The simple (and well founded) principle that evidenced conclusions are more likely to be correct than baseless or poorly evidenced conclusions. No matter how profound you make it sound - Why would any given natural phenomena be best explained by the supernatural given the woeful track record of ALL such previous conclusions and the evidenced fact that humans are prone to erroneously deeply believing in such false conclusions? Genes that propogate do propogate and genes that don't propagate don't propagate. A particular gene propagates better because it allows it's owner to better survive and reproduce. Ultimately there is nothing more to this than just maths. Sure. But I contest the notion that concluding naturalistic answers over supernaturalistic ones is based on the same evidence defying opinions that theistic/deistic conclusions necessarily depend upon.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

But the appearance of design is absolutely known as a fact to be fundamentally misleading. Every proponent of every supernatural answer to everything from the regularity of planetary motions to the existence of the eye has made this same mistake regarding the appearance of design in nature. Do you find it beautiful because you have evolved in such a way as to find it awe inspiring? Or because there really is a supernatural cause of all this that is genuinely mystical and wonderful in the way that you evdently believe to be the case?There is only one genuinely evidenced answer to that question........Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

But it does. It says we humans are deeply inclined to inventing false concepts of a godly nature to explain and account for things we think are otherwise inexplicable or unable to be accounted for. There is masses of objective empirical evidence supporting this conclusion. You do. But where you and I differ is that you see the persistent failure of humanity to be right about specific gods as indicative of us being on a path to eventual truth about an assumed to exist higher being - Whilst I see it as indicative of a deep proclivity to just be wrong about the existence of gods.My position takes the evidence at face value whilst yours necessarily assumes that there is a valid concept of god that we are slowly evolving towards.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.