Percy writes:
The entire history of human experience of the divine has been one of retreat. God used to be behind everything. Rain, drought, lightning, earthquakes, floods, storms, life, love, death, an endless list, it was all controlled by gods or God, and He was everywhere.
What does God control now, and where is he? The answers seem to be that he controls only that which science hasn't explained yet, and that he's somewhere where science hasn't looked yet or can't look. And he seems to be remarkably averse to scientific equipment.
About whether people who claim experiences of God or Jesus are lying, I wouldn't say. But you asked the question, so let me turn the question back on you and ask whether you believe someone who claims experiences of the sun god or Zeus or Jehovah or Allah or nirvana or Krishna is lying? Or is it perhaps just the nature of religious practice that causes people to have what we would normally call a religious experience?
I don't look for a deity in the physical which is what you seem to be doing. There are so many involved in this thread now I can't keep track of what I said to each individual. I see God in acts of altruism, empathy love, devotion to others etc. I don't see God in the physical but in the hearts and minds of human and even animal life.
I realize that for you that doesn't qualify as evidence, but it rings true with me.
Percy writes:
Without looking this up, it seems a pretty safe bet that the psychology field has ways of measuring empathy and love. Just now looked it up anyway. Check out The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire - PMC, for just one example. Or check out Measuring the Capacity to Love: Development of the CTL-Inventory, for another example.
This is you doing what you reject the posts of myself and others by arguing with a link only. Can you put it in your own words?
Percy writes:
But let's say that you're right, that one cannot with confidence judge empathy and love. If scientists cannot gauge it objectively, and if people of the Lord can only have faith in the answer, then doesn't that tell us pretty clearly that no one has any evidence?
And where did you come up with (paraphrasing), "The existence of empathy and love is evidence of God." There are two problems with this. You've just claimed it isn't possible to objectively judge empathy and love, that you can only "believe" it (adding one more to your "I believe" claims). And where is the chain of logic showing that the existence of empathy and love implies that God exists?
There is no chain of logic as such. It is merely the point that it is highly unlikely to rise from lifeless matter without an intelligent root. Scientists have and are still developing AI. Who knows how far that will go. However the intelligence in AI came from intelligence. I don't see why you think that we should be different.
Percy writes:
You are once again reduced to "I believe." Could you please cut it out with the "I believes." Saying "I believe" carries no weight if that's all you've got. You're preaching, not discussing.
Of course you can say "I believe" in a discussion. It is a statement of fact. It is not a statement of evidence and I agree that it carries no weight. I might then go on to say when I believe something, it is actually another way of saying that I realize that it isn't something that I know.
I might say that I think the Edmonton Oilers will win the Stanley Cup this year. Everyone understands that I don't know that to be the case, but that I simply believe it to be.
I don't understand why you are so bothered by this.
Percy writes:
No, the same does not hold for both us and you. It only holds for you. What you're doing is making claims without evidence. All we're doing is telling you your claims are worthless without evidence. We're making no claims of our own other than to say you have no evidence. You've conceded that you have no evidence a number of times, but you continue your search for a way of claiming to have evidence that we can't show wrong. Give it up.
I just went through with Stile my train of thought for what I believe. For you and others it won't constitute evidence. It certainly isn't evidence that can be tested scientifically or mathematically.
Actually I have changed and continue to change my theological views. I have no doubt that I made statements on this forum when I first started that I would refute now. So yes, views can change. You guys like to use the example of finding the natural cause for lightning. When that happened it didn't disprove the concept concerning a deity but simply that our view of the role of the deity had to change.
Percy writes:
Just because no evidence survived of some event of history does not mean it didn't happen. It just means no evidence survived. It also means we can never know about it.
When you say you "believe that Jesus' resurrection was historically true" I think what you actually mean is that you still believe there is evidence for it. Still pinning your hopes on Tacitus, Suetonius, et. al., I assume.
....along with the whole NT and all the authors involved in writing it, but I agree that there is nothing conclusive. I agree that the only evidence is written evidence which can be accepted as completely accurate. partly accurate and completely wrong. It is belief.
Percy writes:
No one's saying you shouldn't believe this. No one's saying that this belief is wrong. But if you begin to again repeat your claims of evidence for a caring deity ("hey, empathy and love, there's your evidence") then we'll quickly point out the flaws in your thinking. However, if you're only saying, "I believe in God," then fine, you believe in God. Nobody's got a problem with that. The only thing we have a problem with is when you claim you have evidence of God, and not just of God generally but specifically of the God of Christianity.
I have laid out what I consider as evidence for you several times. I don't see the need to do it again. I recognise that you don't see the evidence in the same light that I do and you even reject that it constitutes evidence at all.
Percy writes:
Because of tentativity there is nothing in science that we know absolutely, so when you say that things can be true without absolutely knowing that they're true, realize that there is nothing that we absolutely know. Consider it an ideal that can never be achieved.
Evidence never tells us that something is absolutely true. It only tells us what is likely true about the real world. And, of course, unsupported belief tells us nothing.
If God is part of the real world, we have no evidence of that. That doesn't mean he doesn't exist, but it does put him in the realm of all other things that have no evidence, like unicorns, elves, fairies, and the flying spaghetti monster.
That is true if you only consider material or scientific evidence and totally reject philosophical and theological evidence. However, I agree that we can't know anything absolutely except for maybe Descartes point that "I think, therefore I am".
Percy writes:
Evidence of natural origins for anything, such as morality, is not evidence against God. It is evidence of a natural origin that contradicts your claims of divine origins that lack all evidence. You're completely misconstruing what Stile is saying.
Being able to make claims of the rise of moral understanding is not the same as explaining morality's origin.
Percy writes:
Let me try another tack. Say there's someone who is absolutely convinced that unicorns exist, or at least that unicorns once existed. He searches for evidence for decades but never finds any. How should this failure to find any evidence affect his belief in unicorns?
Now consider someone who is absolutely convinced that God exists. He searches for evidence for decades but never finds any. How should this failure to find any evidence affect his belief in God?
Shouldn't the failure to find evidence affect his assessment of the probability that his hypothesis is correct, whether it's about the existence of unicorns or God?
That is the same argument that a Russian astronaut made, when he said that he knew there was no god because he was up in space and didn't see him. Nobody is suggesting that you can go out behind the barn and find God or evidence of Him.
Percy writes:
A word about the nature of evidence. Think of evidence as a verifiable fact, then enumerate in your mind the verifiable facts for God and Jesus. This should be a relatively quick task as there are none.
Well it is a fact that the Gospels were written with the idea that they be read as a non-fictional account. There accuracy isn't verifiable.
Conscious life exists but it is not verifiable that it is a result of pre-existing intelligence.
However, you won't find God in a test tube, behind the barn or even in a set of mathematical equations.
Percy writes:
As I said earlier, morality is hopelessly relative. Even murder, which everyone agrees is wrong, is relative. Murder is wrong, unless you live in a jurisdiction with capital punishment, in which case it's okay. Murder is wrong, unless you're a combatant in war, in which case it's okay. Murder is wrong, unless you're getting rid of an inferior race like Jews in Europe or Bosnians in Bosnia or Tutsis in Rwanda, then it's okay.
If even the wrongness of something as heinous as murder is relative, then how could anyone argue that any moral quality isn't relative?
But getting back on point, morality most certainly fits within an evolutionary framework. To stick with your introduction of the popular vernacular of "survival of the fittest," morality evolved because it made populations more fit in the struggle for survival. It conferred a survival advantage upon human populations.
No, morality is a heart thing. In different times and different cultures the same action might be moral in one case and immoral in another. It is what motivates what we do that makes it moral or immoral.
Percy writes:
Morality isn't defined as a thought. It's a behavior, just like animals marking their territory is a behavior. They're both inherent behaviors. Instinctual.
I contend that it is more than that. An animal marking its territory is instinctive and about its survival. Morality is not instinctiv, and I contend that although co-operative behaviour can be personally beneficial, that does not mean that actually caring about others by putting them ahead of ourselves is instinctive. It is a learned and then accepted behaviour that hopefully becomes who we are.
Percy writes:
I have only one question for theism: Where's the evidence?
I have answered that numerous times.
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He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8
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