Seeing by reliable witnesses.
And generally not even then, absent objective indicators and an evaluation of the perceptions of the witness.
The Great Reset
- Thread starter Motar
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And generally not even then, absent objective indicators and an evaluation of the perceptions of the witness.
What about hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling? Do these faculties count where evidence is concerned?
Asked and answered.
Do you think Joan of Arc was accurately receiving orders from a god?
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So, the answer to “what do you mean by evidence?” is “hard science” or inferences derived from physical/material reality as discerned by the senses.
What about so-called “soft science” and inferences derived from metaphysical dimensions of life by the soul?
That's not science. It's philosophy, shading into mysticism.
I have seen no evidence that "metaphysical dimensions" exist except as fairy tales.
Or in the mind# of those that spent too much time in the sun without a hat.
Same thing anybody would mean by it, it's a common ordinary word and means the body of data, facts, information, and analyses adduced in support of a certain proposition, in this particular case the proposition that there's at least one supernatural being that has some interest in us.
Neither do you, nor has anyone else, the idea that there's an incorporeal part of the personality that's separate from and survives the death of the body is pure wishful thinking rooted in the fear of death.
The existence of soul can be judged by man himself: if he askes himself: what am I? Have I a soul? Or when someone else asks him: have you any soul?
The difference between the robot and the living man, is that the first has no soul, and it is only a machine [as one of members here said it: I think he was Dark Beaver. The same difference between man living and after a little while he is dead.
http://www.quran-ayat.com/man/index.htm#What_Is_Man_
The difference between the robot and the living man, is that the first has no soul, and it is only a machine [as one of members here said it: I think he was Dark Beaver. The same difference between man living and after a little while he is dead.
http://www.quran-ayat.com/man/index.htm#What_Is_Man_
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No, Motar's question was legit. There are, after all, plenty of accounts of people who report experiences with gods, angels, saints, demons, UFOs, ghosts, dead relatives, and what-have-you. Eyewitness testimony is accepted as valid in courts (as is some pretty sketchy or downright fictional "scientific" evidence, like bite-mark analysis.) So why not visions and dreams (or, if the reader prefers, "divine revelations")?
That's not how reasoning works and you know it. As a geologist you can't just claim there's an oil reservoir or an ore body somewhere, you have to produce the evidence and have it evaluated by other knowledgeable people before you'll be believed. For any existence claim the burden of proof is on those making the claim, and until the evidence is produced and evaluated the default position is doubt. Otherwise anybody could make any claim at all, no matter how bizarre or extraordinary, and demand that others either accept it as true or prove it wrong. Bertrand Russell demolished that kind of argument long ago with the analogy of a teapot in orbit around the sun between Earth and Mars. You can't shift the burden of proof onto the skeptics, that's not a legitimate argument. Failing to prove something is false does not mean it must be true.
Sure it was a legitimate question, the matter of evidence is crucial for any claim. The examples you list there, for instance, aren't evidence in any meaningful sense, people reporting such experiences can provide only their report on it, nobody else can actually see the evidence, it's empirically unverifiable and unfalsifiable, and not really even shareable. Such reports reflect a particular emotional state in the persons reporting them, and always have other explanations and interpretations than the ones offered. And as I'm sure you're aware, eyewitness testimony is one of the least reliable kinds of evidence, it's a mystery to me why the legal system sets such store by it.
Any true claim must at least in principle be falsifiable, that is, it must be possible to at least imagine evidence that would show it to be false. If no conceivable evidence could ever disprove a claim, then the evidence in its favour doesn't matter either, it's invulnerable to any kind of evidence and thus is meaningless in any factual sense. As an old philosophy professor of mine once put it, it's "propositionally vacuous." It's an emotive claim that perhaps says something about the claimant’s view of the world, so it may contain some useful or interesting information, but can’t itself be labelled true or false. A very bright chap, an anthropologist named James Lett, once put it this way: “Because human beings are often motivated to rationalize and to lie to themselves, because they are sometimes motivated to lie to others, because they can make mistakes, and because perception and memory are problematic, we must demand that the evidence for any factual claim be evaluated without self-deception, that it be carefully screened for error, fraud, and appropriateness, and that it be substantial and unequivocal.” Any claim that fails any of those tests deserves to be rejected.
And on the matter of evidence for the postulated anthropomorphic deity, consider these ideas from various areas of human endeavor:
Statistics: There's a very clear inverse relationship between how much we know about something and the
role we're willing to assign to the supernatural in it, the more we know, the less we attribute to supernatural causes. Any logical person faced with such a consistent trend wouldn't hesitate to extrapolate and decide god most likely doesn't exist.
Anthropology: Religions are historical products of changing human cultures. They are born, evolve, and die; the ancient Greek, Roman, and Norse gods are extinct by any reasonable measure. Belief in any particular god, or concept of god, is quite relative to human cultures. There's also still a bewildering variety of religions; and no conceivable basis on which to choose the 'right' one.
Geology: the earth is clearly and definitely much older than the few thousand years permitted by the teachings of any religion I've ever been able to investigate. Most religions no longer hew to such outmoded ideas, but they're still there in the texts, and there are always a few fools who'll insist on the literalist view.
Astronomy: every religiously derived cosmology I've ever encountered is demonstrably wrong. And not just a little bit, but egregiously, stunningly wrong. Again, most religions no longer insist on such things, but the ideas are still in the texts, and again, there are always a few fools...etc. What this really shows is a massive failure of human imagination compared to what science now tells us about reality.
Scientifically, yes. Legally, generally no. I was dealing with Motar according to the much-easier-to-meet standard.
Still fails, of course.
The unanswerable question, of course, is "If there is a god, and if this god is omnipotent, and if this god wants me to believe, why has this god not made godself inarguable?"
Still fails, of course.
The unanswerable question, of course, is "If there is a god, and if this god is omnipotent, and if this god wants me to believe, why has this god not made godself inarguable?"
Neither. It's not a dichotomy.
You know, Motar, your play with word-games is no less tedious than that of other posters.
You do not seek clarity. You seek some sense of victory.
Truth, TB. That is what I seek.
There are 137 references to truth in the NIV Bible. John's gospel contains the majority with 23 references.
"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, 'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
"Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17).
Truth is freedom and sanctification by God's word through Jesus Christ. This is the Great Reset.
There are 137 references to truth in the NIV Bible. John's gospel contains the majority with 23 references.
"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, 'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
"Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17).
Truth is freedom and sanctification by God's word through Jesus Christ. This is the Great Reset.
If or when you've had an experience like the unlimited amount of others who have you'd get it.
Ask around, they'll all say the same thing.