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Science and Evidence

Skeptics constantly throw the word evidence at believers as if it has some spectacular meaning. Is that too difficult for you to understand? Does not compute?

First of all when you give a dictionary definition of the word evidence to a skeptic it is evidence for the word evidence, but a skeptic will say it doesn't mean much. Definition of evidence: "The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid." Two important points: first the evidence is used to determine if true or not, and second it includes whether or not a belief as well as proposition is true or valid. Truth is defined as a fact or belief that is accepted as true.

Either way you look at it believers have more evidence and truth than science because they believe it more and it is accepted more. It's almost completely meaningless. Saying science has the evidence is like saying you believe current science to be a valid belief. These facts may change but we are told by science to believe them. For now. We evolved. There was no flood. We are not religious because we don't believe there are any gods. We believe there are no gods. We have no way of knowing what a god is.

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Gloomy · F

Either way you look at it believers have more evidence and truth than science because they believe it more and it is accepted more.

you don't have evidence for the supernatural and what one religion accepts as truth is refuted and heavily negated by another. In science the cultural background has much less baring on the concept of truth.
Also since lots of knowlege and realisations are relative to a certain degree science doesn't use the term "truth" very often yet if science depicts nature and reality as closely as possible we can refer to something as true.

These facts may change but we are told by science to believe them.

To acknowledge these facts and to change our knowlegde based on new findings. Science is a constant quest for new knowledge and discoveries

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DocSavage · M

@AkioTsukino

Nature. Any time you think something is going to happen before it happens in a way you think it will happen, even if the evidence suggests it will happen but it hasn't happened yet, that is faith

Science, can make predictions before they happen by studying the element involved.
What you describe, if it is not a routine phenomenon, is clairvoyance. Faith doesn’t give you the ability to predict the future.
Like if you know it’s going to rain. You see dark clouds, you smell the damp air, You feel a cool breeze. It’s not faith that tells you it’s going to rain. It’s a quick assessment of conditions leading to a logical conclusion. Deductions from given information and past experiences.
Where is the faith in this ?
What you haven’t shown, is justification for having faith without a tangible reason.

AkioTsukino · M

@DocSavage

Science, can make predictions before they happen by studying the element involved.

"Element: 1. a part or aspect of something abstract, especially one that is essential or characteristic.

2. each of more than one hundred substances that cannot be chemically interconverted or broken down into simpler substances and are primary constituents of matter. Each element is distinguished by its atomic number, i.e. the number of protons in the nuclei of its atoms."

In the context you used you mean 1. Like when I was a kid and I took my radio apart? Never worked again. Kidding. Sort of.

What you describe, if it is not a routine phenomenon, is clairvoyance. Faith doesn’t give you the ability to predict the future.

Not in the supernatural sense, but events are often foreseeable. I used meteorologists as an example earlier. If someone says if you jump off that cliff you'll die. It doesn't take a genius or god to figure that out, but it is faith. I have faith you'll die if you jump, I trust you will die.

Clairvoyance is an illusion, a magic trick with an emphasis on trick. "The supposed faculty of perceiving things or events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact." Magic is a tricky word. I like tricky words. The British informal expression is wonderful/exciting. It can also be used there and elsewhere hyperbolically. "It didn't disappear like magic!" Then there's "the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces." The emphasis on apparently. Performance art, illusionist. It's not real, it just appears real.

Many people, even Christians, think that God and demons can see into the future, but that isn't the case. The future doesn't exist. When God foretells something it means he either can see it happen from a logical perspective or that he is going to make it happen. So, fortune telling and that sort of thing was punishable by death because there is a supernatural element to it. Demons - according to the Bible now - I say, demons can deceive, manipulate and influence things. Highly intelligent extraterrestrial beings. So, though most witches, fortune tellers "ghosts" etc. are fake, it is possible for demonic influence. According to the Bible which I believe.

I know. You don't give a shit. Maybe someone reading does.

Like if you know it’s going to rain. You see dark clouds, you smell the damp air, You feel a cool breeze. It’s not faith that tells you it’s going to rain.

It is. As I've described it above. Unbelievers tend to have difficulty with some words they imagine, for some reason, is exclusively applied to the supernatural. There isn't anything supernatural about faith. You can have faith (trust) in the supernatural but faith itself isn't a supernatural phenomenon. It simply means trust.

You see dark clouds, you smell the damp air, You feel a cool breeze. It’s not faith that tells you it’s going to rain. It’s a quick assessment of conditions leading to a logical conclusion. Deductions from given information and past experiences.

Right, but you don't know for certain that it's going to rain. You can have faith in your experience and observations and logic but you can't be sure it will rain until it rains. As Paul said at Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Comparing translations descriptions of faith involve hope, evidence, conviction, assurance etc. https://biblehub.com/hebrews/11-1.htm

Where is the faith in this ?

It's just trust. Doesn't necessarily have anything to do with all those silly things you hate. God, religion, supernatural, etc.

What you haven’t shown, is justification for having faith without a tangible reason.

Your apparent confusion regarding the secular or natural possibilities, insisting on faith being supernatural or religious is causing that confusion. It's just trust. Confidence.

DocSavage · M

@AkioTsukino
Again I have to ask. What is the point you are trying to make between science and faith ? Each of the examples you cited have nothing to do with faith, nor for that matter demonstrate science as being unreliable. .

For now. We evolved. There was no flood. We are not religious because we don't believe there are any gods. We believe there are no gods. We have no way of knowing what a god is.

Another definition of faith, is belief in something, despite overwhelming evidence against it. Or if you prefer trust in something untrustworthy.

revenant · F

It is just not possible to have evidence for everything. Humans have only so many senses and vastly inferior to those of animals. We do not see everything, we do not hear everything, we do not smell everything.
We are also talking about non existence of appropriate instruments or tools. Those might be devised later on.
Humans are so arrogant and biased..

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AkioTsukino · M

@LeopoldBloom

If there is no evidence for something, it need not be accepted as true.

@revenant

and I find that absurd. If you do not look for something, you will not find it. If you are unaware of the existence of xyz, you will not look for it even.

Okay, this is much longer than I had planned. HEY! It's isn't my verbosity it's my curiosity and this stuff is paradoxically simple and complicated, redundant and essential. The shortcut to the conclusion is to go down to the separation in the text.

This is really the most fascinating thing to me, and I think it always has been. Thirty years ago when I became a believer at 27, I had no one to talk to about my beliefs. All of my family and friends were and still are atheists and they just didn't want to hear about it. They thought it was ridiculous just as I had always thought. But that had been the only thing that I did know about it. That it seemed ridiculous.

So, when I got online and discovered all of these public forums where this debate was taking place between believers and unbelievers (back then, in the mid to late 1990's there were many more than now) I always gravitated to the unbelievers. I had no interest in debating doctrinal disputes which actually is much more challenging, but I couldn't figure out why that is. I only recently figured out that it's because (I think) that they, the unbelievers, have this really weird way of looking at things. And it fascinates me like some mechanical anomaly that doesn't compute.

First of all there is an appeal to authority that you would think would be more prevalent in believers. But then there is this weird way of looking at "evidence." It's not what you might think. I used to think that this was just their way of saying "my beliefs are better than yours because yours are silly, and mine aren't because 1.) you can't prove yours and 2.) mine can be explained." And you would assume that they are so enamored with science because that is the basis for their discovery. But that isn't actually true. Science investigates the unexplained. It tries to explain the unexplained. We know this works, but why or how does it work? If something is explained science is done with it, no more need of it. And science can and has had some pretty strange explanations.

So then I thought, well, it's confirmation bias. The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories. I thought that they used science as confirmation of their disbelief, as a sort of crutch because they are afraid of the unknown, or looking silly. They need concrete answers - to think there are concrete answers and then conversely there are silly people. I'm not silly. It's groupthink and a false sense of intellect and comfort to them.

But then I noticed that they really didn't think that way. They really didn't care about evidence as defined as "the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid." You can see this by their refusing any evidence that contradicts their misinformed opinion, not only about God, the Bible, spirituality and the supernatural, but also secular events like the holocaust, 9/11, the Covid pandemic. If evidence were really important to them, they would, like me, eventually say "hold on a minute" when spiritual, or at least secular knowledge - the science - didn't compute. Didn't add up. But they don't. At all. In fact, they become not only dogmatic about those things but also will ignore the real evidence as defined above either not to look silly or wrong which no science minded person should fear.

What they really mean when they say "evidence" is accepted explanation or ideology (the science of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy) and narcissism (thinking very highly of oneself, needing admiration, believing others are inferior).

The result is that they will deny rather than explore evidence unless it confirms their belief out of fear. The problem with all of this is that it isn't anything new. And more importantly, after living half of my life as an unbeliever and the other half as a believer I can safely say nothing about it is any different one from the other.

I'm afraid that the only conclusion I can draw is that these unbelievers are - well - human! Not unlike ourselves.

I know. I know. This is a remarkable discovery, but I should have known all along. Bastards.

LeopoldBloom · M

@AkioTsukino You're literally describing believers, not atheists. I've noticed the same thing about you guys - confirmation bias and a tendency to fall for conspiracy theories that match your own preexisting beliefs.

Having participated in many religious discussions, I'm aware of the "evidence" that believers present, along with the refutations. Part of the problem is confusion between evidence and conjecture. When we ask for proof of God's existence, an honest theist will say that there is none; God's existence can only be inferred from observations, which could also lead to the opposite conclusion. This is why the Bible says people are saved by faith, not knowledge. Kierkegaard said that if a man succeeded in proving the truth of Christianity beyond any possible doubt, by doing so he would have destroyed it, because he would have made faith impossible. No one has faith that 2 + 2 = 4. Knowledge is a different form of understanding than faith.

Another mistake theists make is to accuse atheists of having "faith" in science. What they're doing is confusing faith with trust. I don't have faith that the theory of natural selection is true; I trust that the people who have studied this are on the right track, and the academic systems that vet them are rigorous. It would be like you trusting that your pastor attended a legitimate seminary and his explanations of the Bible are in line with your denomination's positions.

And of course people we disagree with are human. We need to remember that so we don't start killing each other over these disagreements.

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Richard65 · M

You typed this out on a computer or phone, developed by science, and now we're all reading your message. Why not just project your message telepathically and have faith we'll all receive it...? 🤔

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DocSavage · M

We have no way of knowing what a god is.

Yes we do. If you look at history, you will see that all of the thousands of god we have have been created by humans. We give them whatever powers and abilities they need to get the job done. We even supply the morale compass.
What you criticize as “no evidence “ is the basics of the null position.
Belief in a god requires a reasonable premise. Usually the premise is creation. We believe that we are here because something must have put us here. From there it grows. That something must have put us here for a purpose. That purpose must have some higher agenda, because it’s beyond our understanding, therefore god must be a higher level of intelligence, with greater morality, etc. etc.
Religion itself serves as uniformity. Bringing people together for a common cause, so god has other uses . But from a social, historical point of view. Gods are whatever we make them to be.

AkioTsukino · M

@DocSavage Belief in a god requires only veneration, even if the person doesn't know that and that only, is exactly what it means to be a god. Creation or destruction or anything or nothing else may or may not be involved.

From there it grows. That something must have put us here for a purpose.

No. Most gods aren't claimed to have created or having a purpose. Out of ignorance of what it means to be a god you conflate all with one. If you're going to elaborate on the meaning be more specific. Zeus? Shiva? etc. You shouldn't lump all gods together any more than you would science.

That purpose must have some higher agenda, because it’s beyond our understanding, therefore god must be a higher level of intelligence, with greater morality, etc. etc.
Religion itself serves as uniformity. Bringing people together for a common cause, so god has other uses . But from a social, historical point of view. Gods are whatever we make them to be.

The idea of man creating gods beyond their understanding is very unrealistic, it only fits your own agenda. The one you perceive in the intellectual/moral dilemma which was really created to support itself in the first place much like your own misinterpretation of theism. Someone once said: "You know you've created your own gods when it turns out it hates all the same things you do."

BlueSkyKing · M

THE SCIENTIFIC GOD MODEL
So, let us now define a scientific God model, a theory of God. A supreme being is hypothesized to exist having the following attributes:

1. God is the creator and preserver of the universe.

2. God is the architect of the structure of the universe and the author of the laws of nature.

3. God steps in whenever he wishes to change the course of events, which may include violating his own laws as, for example, in response to human entreaties.

4. God is the creator and preserver of life and humanity, where human beings are special in relation to other life-forms.

5. God has endowed humans with immaterial, eternal souls that exist independent of their bodies and carry the essence of a person's character and selfhood.

6. God is the source of morality and other human values such as freedom, justice, and democracy.

7. God has revealed truths in scriptures and by communicating directly to select individuals throughout history.

8. God does not deliberately hide from any human being who is open to finding evidence for his presence.

Most of these attributes are traditionally associated with the Judeo-Christian- Islamic God, and many are shared by the gods of diverse religions. Note, however, that the traditional attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence—the 3O characteristics usually associated with the Judeo- Christian-Islamic God—have been omitted.

Such a God is already ruled out by the arguments of logical inconsistency. While the 3Os will show up on occasion as supplementary attributes, they will rarely be needed. For example, the case against a creator god will apply to any such god, even an evil or imperfect one. Furthermore, the God of the monotheistic scriptures—Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur'an—is not omnibenevolent, and so not ruled out by logical inconsistency. The observable effects that such a God may be expected to have are still testable by the normal, objective processes of science.

BlueSkyKing · M

If I choose to label myself it’s freethinker.

Evidence is detectable, measurable, and can be tested repeatedly by anyone. You can also add falsifying to the procedure. It’s methodology at the core. Truth is in testing and truth demands to be tested. We’re all children of The Enlightenment and that way of thinking is here forever.

To me, the bottom line is honesty. A person with integrity doesn’t claim to know supernatural things that he or she cannot know. An honest person wants solid evidence to support assertions and is leery of baseless claims. Therefore, skeptics are the most honest of all.

https://similarworlds.com/beliefs/4725479-Skepticism-is-all-about-honesty-Nobody-actually-knows-where

AkioTsukino · M

@BlueSkyKing

Could the same not be said of imagination? If not the free thinkers have a lot of explaining to do because they let the ball drop on that one. Methodology and mythology are kindred spirits in that regard.

We’re all children of The Enlightenment and that way of thinking is here forever.

That would explain a great deal.

BlueSkyKing · M

@AkioTsukino

Methodology and mythology are kindred spirits in that regard.

You couldn’t be more wrong.

SDavis · 56-60, F

Atheist look at God as a mythical, magical sky Daddy.

Atheist can believe that the Big bang singularity brought everything into existence from nothing so says Hawkins. Some scientist are trying to prove Hawkins wrong.... But The entity we refer to as God couldn't do it as far as their concerned __ God said **Let there be light**___ and at the singularity there was a burst of microwave radiation light, invisible to the man's eye but it lit up the known universe and they can still see remnants of it in the sky today.

Atheist can believe that life started on Earth through a process real life sprung up spontaneously - called abiogenesis. Yet they refuse to believe that the entity we call God, who is the ultimate scientist could not create life.

And they refuse to see that the creation as it is written in the Book of Genesis coincide with how science has determined life on Earth began in order........ And they'll say something like God created the sun and the moon after he created plants and the plants need sun and moon to live. They don't understand that God himself is light and a light so bright man cannot look upon him. Himself and the light he created on the first day sustained the plants until he put in place the Sun and Moon to sustain them throughout the established time...... Then there are those who will say science says animals came before plants __ well science has learned they miscalculated how old plants are and they are hundreds of millions of years older than first thought. And the new dating for plants coincides with the emergence of animals sponges and all.
.https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39267153.amp

https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/land-plants-may-have-appeared-80-million-years-earlier-than-we-thought/

And they would rather believe that we are all highly advanced fish since science say we humans animals alike evolved from fish.
[media=https://youtu.be/_3gKVOeXpxU?feature=shared]

https://www.npr.org/2010/07/05/127937070/the-human-edge-finding-our-inner-fish

Ynotisay · M

@SDavis Question. Do you know how many gods there are? Now and throughout history? Thousands. So why would YOUR god be the "right" god? People worshiped the sun far longer than they worshiped your god. Why would they be wrong but you would be right?

SDavis · 56-60, F

@Ynotisay I think I have done more studies than you and yes I know there are many different named gods.

Can you say as an absolute that it's not the same God? Worshiped by different cultures around the world throughout the ages, worshiped in their way and given a name according to their language and culture......... Can you not say as an absolute all of those thousands of Gods were not the fallen 200 watchers that co-mingled with man and set themselves up as gods and were worshiped as gods because they were supernatural entities. Either is possible !!!!!

No you cannot say that as an absolute but neither can I just like an atheist can't prove God doesn't exist neither can believers prove with tangible physical pro of that God does exist. Heck scientists know it's impossible they don't even tackle it........

I'll leave you with this

[media=https://youtu.be/J7uV9suXnik?feature=shared]

[media=https://youtu.be/u1hNYs55sqs?feature=shared]

Reagan and Carter filed reports on seeing something unidentifiable and supernatural
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/11/17/us-presidents-ufo-obsession-00127519

United States government investigating UFOs since 1947 from Project Sign to Project Grudge to Project Blue Book to date
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/pentagon-ufos-search-extraterrestrial-intelligence-life-space-science

Need to read the 14 tablets of Enki where the Gods had wars and used what seem like nuclear weaponry and the fallout aftermath between Enlil, Enki, Ninurta
[media=https://youtu.be/bf2857pP8Lw?feature=shared]

Need to read of the identical war that the Egyptians wrote of - the named gods were Osiris, Seth, and Horace worse 7 weapons of mass destruction were used

[media=https://youtu.be/ooUrerKFFhE?feature=shared]

Extraterrestrials is what they're called today........ And if you actually open your mind and think about it God even from all of the cultures __ the Angels or any other little god from any of the cultures _ the devil or any evil being from any of the other cultures are not from Earth.

I nor Christians can prove in a tangible acceptable way to unbeliever that we are right and others are wrong. Either you believe he is the creator or you don't.

He didn't just pop up one day with the Hebrews, he's been here and he has been with all the cultures and he chose one particular people to leave his word through.....

DocSavage · M

Either way you look at it believers have more evidence and truth than science because they believe it more and it is accepted more

That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve said yet. You sound like the flat earth crew. They claim not only that the earth is flat, but there is a multi governmental conspiracy, to hide a massive area of land . And that NASA is using all the money it gets for space exploration to pay out massive bribes, to anyone who actually travel far enough to see the edge of the world. They can’t explore space, because there isn’t any.
Such willful stupidity is incomprehensible to most people. Some believe it for biblical reasons. But there are there are many who claim the belief is scientifically valid.
From what you’ve been posting, you seem to believe their faith is enough to make it all plausible.
You also give Atheists, more credibility, in the claim that ignorance on a large scale, can substitute faith for fact.

Iwantyourhotwife · 22-25

Just a heads up, the core point behind evidence is not belief but indication. Evidence points to something being true, which can be leveraged to support another idea

Evidence doesn't strengthen based on believing harder or more people believing in it

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redredred · M

There is lots if evidence for the Easter bunny. There are personal reports, cultural records in the form of songs and depictions and items left behind, mostly candy, that is attributed to him. Lots of evidence but no proof.

No one has ever, ever provided proof of a deity of any sort. Never, ever.

NativePortlander1970 ·

@redredred Exactly, we even have more proof that the Fae Folk exist than any deity.

fakable

there is no true evidence in predictive science

only an infinitely repeated element of causal reality leading to the same real consequence as an element of reality can be considered true evidence

it is impossible

it is possible an optimal proof which can be considered true within the framework of the generalized artificial theoretical model of reality

faith requires no proof
faith, like philosophy, uses only artificial theoretical models of reality

ElRengo · 70-79, M

It seems (but may be I´m wrong) that you are equating a wider skepticism about religious claims with Science.
The meaning of evidence in the later though related is not the same as the one defined by the dictionary.
Moreover cos Science is also but not mainly about knowledge.
But about what don´t deppends on being known to be, it´s propper object.

So the clash between scientists and some branches of believe is not the existence of God but about the descriptions of the natural world made by some believers.

Ynotisay · M

It's always fun to watch you guys twist in the wind to justify make believe due to fear. It's cute albeit a little sad.

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AkioTsukino · M

@Ynotisay

Said the guy arguing over and over on this thread to try to convince others that belief carries more weight than science.

Who is? Where?!

Seems like science and best available facts might be the enemy of belief, huh? Yeah. It is.

You're a little bit of a smart ass, aren't you? I am too, but I'm usually not so smug and pretentious about it. Yeah. You are.

[media=https://youtu.be/jsLUidiYm0w]

Ynotisay · M

@AkioTsukino It's ok tiger'. You're totally free to live in whatever world of make believe you want. YOU lose because of it but, you know, feeeeelings. They appeal to some. But it's when you guys start saying you're right there's where I jump off. So yeah. I'm the smug one. Sure thing. Get off yourself dude.

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CountScrofula · 41-45, M

what

NativePortlander1970 ·

Your mama must have fed you a very steady diet of paint chips.

AkioTsukino · M

@NativePortlander1970 Maybe a trauma as a baby? Until 1989 science thought babies couldn't feel and so anesthesia wasn't used during surgeries.

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