Another big batch of stuff to answer, man, we'll need to publish this as a book... hopefully you are not put off by the bulk of it.
I'm sorry bikerbaz thinks this is useless, I would like to know what he thinks of what I say today. I am also wondering if he feels threatened by all this and why he considers me the enemy. In which case I appologise, this is not my intent.
So let's go into it and please forgive me for almost losing my temper the other night, there are so many things being thrown at me, I find it slightly overwhelming. There are also some contradiction in what each of you is saying, you apparently do not all agree with each other... I feel like I'm playing chess with a dozen opponents at the same time. And it is none of your concern but I also have a life which keeps me busy... anyway, here goes, please do not hold back your punches :
Miri says :
« You know what, it sounds that instead of trying to convince yourself God does
exist, you are trying to convince yourself God doesn't exist. »
That's right, glad you realized it, thanks for the compliment... what I don't get is why you think I should be doing anything different. The way you find out if something is probably true, like in science for example, is that you take an hypothesis, «evolution by natural selection produces new species» for example, and you try to test it. If after an honnest attempt at disproving your hypothesis it still seems like a possibility, then that hypothesis stands a chance to be true.
It is easier to instead attempt to confirm an hypothesis, (the way which you seem to favor), but unfortunately that doesn't help you find out if it is true or not. The classic illustration is the white swan hypothesis. It goes: All swans are white.
What do you do to find out if it is true? You look for white swans? You could do that and find quite a few, but will that tell you if all swans are white? No, you would have to check every single swan and that is impossible, you could never know if you missed one. To find out how probable it is that all swans are white, you need to do your utmost to find a NON white swan. If you can't, then you can accept that very probably, all swans are white. But if one day you spot a black swan, then your hypothesis is disproved and you can formulate a theory that says a minority of swans are black. You can never be sure your theory is correct but you can raise the level of probability it is by trying to convince yourself it is incorrect. That's how science works. That's how you find out if something is likely to be true or not. It is all a matter of how probable or improbable it is. That's the best we, as humans, can do.
If you ask me how probable it is that the sun rises in the East tomorrow, I'd say 99.99999999 %. That's how confident I am in the theory that the sun always rises in the east. But I wouldn't say 100% because, well, what do I know? I can imagine a scenario where the Sun doesn't rise tomorrow and so it is a possibility. I need to account for it. We test that theory every morning. And guess what, even if I believe the sun will rise tomorrow, that doesn't mean it will for sure.
Are you trying to imply you do not agree with this and that you do not do this when you try to find if something is true? If so, wow.
So if I want to know if God exists, or if evolution is true, or if my girlfriend is cheating on me, or if my mum is delusional, or if the computer I want to buy is a good one for me, I apply this method, because that is the best one we have. It has been refined over the ages and what works has been kept and what hasn't has been discarded and now we have hypothesis testing and nothing seems to beat it to find out if something is likely to be true or not.
And you'll have to take note that I'm not testing atheism here, we're talking about God so atheism being an abscence of belief in God, I have nothing to test since I'm not saying «God doesn't exists», that's not my position, the only thing I can test is the affirmative, whether god exists or not, because you say he does. So it is legitimate to put the god hypothesis to the question, not atheism.
Another important point about the scientific method to find if something is true or not, is that your hypothesis needs to be failible, meaning that is is conceivably disprovable. Otherwise you can't find out if it is true or not because you have nothing to look for that would repudiate your hypothesis, you cannot test it and go on to form a theory upon the results.
A classic example from Bertrand Russel is the tea pot hypothesis.
It goes: there is an invisible teapot orbiting the moon.
How can we find out if it is true? Difficult? No, damn near impossible. That hypothesis is not failible so we can't test it. For all we know, there is an actual invisible teapot orbiting the moon. Seems utterly improbable, granted, but if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit we don't know for sure how probable or improbable it is and we have no way to tell. So when we form hypothesis with the intent of finding if they are likely to be true or not, for them to be useful, we need to make sure they are failible. That's how we determine what's worth investigating. Anybody can make any wild claim like the teapot, but if they are not testable, then their are just wild claims and will never be confirmed or refuted. Maybe Russell has faith in his teapot, but we can safely ignore the whole thing. I think we would agree on that.
This brings me to a question for you:
Is our hypothesis that God exists failible? What could prove it wrong? How can we test it?
If we cannot answer that, then our hypothesis is not testable, and so how can we determine whether it is true or not without being merely believing or guessing? What distinguish it from any wild claim? What distinguish it from Russell's teapot?
So since you are the once convinced God exists and I'm at a loss, please let me know how you test the God hypothesis and how it could be shown to be wrong.
Miri also says:
Come on, admit it, part of you is worried He does exist and you are trying to
find a way around that in your own mind.
B1Davanda said the same thing, that's funny because that's not true at all. You guys just don't have a clue. I'm actually excited by the possibility God exists, I mean, good news, right, eternity in heaven sounds more fun than nothingness in the grave. A loving God instead of a purposeless universe? Give me the loving God any day! But the fact that I feel that way about it means I need to be extra careful about confirmation bias when trying to find out if it is true. I can be too easily mislead. As it is, I'm just not convinced and I do my best to find out if he exists or not. I don't want to merely believe, I want to find out if he exists for real. If God exists and gave me a brain, I would imagine he'd want me to use it for that very purpose.
You know what? Same with UFOs for me. I don't think they visit earth in flying saucers and kidnap people, but man, do I wish it were so! But my integrity will not let me beleive in UFOs without proper evidence and evidence is lacking despite what believers say. To me there is very little doubt, say 99% probablity, that the UFO believers are delusional.
Now as regard to God, I'll say I'm on the 25% probability mark, agnostic with atheistic tendencies, remember? Don't know one way or another but think most probably not. As to Jesus being God, I'm closer to the 5% probability mark (he's got a lot of competition). That's how it works for me. I have a skeptical scientific mind. (and before everybody screams at me to read the bible, the last time I read the bible it actually lowered my belief that Jesus exists, thank you). And to push things further, you people seem to be at the 100% probability mark, maybe some will say 150% mark, that Jesus saves. Is that correct?
Well, to me that's a sign that you haven't really done your homework as to how we believe and how we know anything is true, you blur the difference between believing and knowing, you are not using your brain, you are using your heart, and are being quite vocal about it to boot. But faith is pretending you know something you don't know, faith doesn't lead to knowing, it is about believing. It's what you do when your hypothesis is like the teapot and you can't test it. If you knew God existed you would be able to demonstrate it, you wouldn't need to say you have faith in God or in the bible, don't you think?
By the way, note to Magenta : You mention a lot of scientists, nobel prizes and such who are christians. Good for them. I'm ready to bet that a very small proportion of them believe in God with a 100% probability. John Lennox doesn't for example. I'm also ready to bet that a big proportion of those people do not believe exactly the same things you do (granted, with more than 30 000 different christians denominations I'm not taking a huge risk here) so how is that supporting your case? And in any case, even a nobel prize winning scientist can be wrong about God, I mean, the argument from authority is not a very compelling one, is it? No more than the argument from popularity. And it is undeniable that the vast majority of scientists do not believe in God, so I don't think you want to go there, really.
My questions were more to try to find out if you understood what the scientific method was. I guess I got my answer: no.
More from Miri :
I still throw down the challenge I gave you earlier to seek Him with all your heart, get
out that bible, pray, read, ask God to reveal a Himself to you. Do the seeking and
finding for yourself.
She is not the only one telling me this, so I take it most of you think it is very good advice. I'm grateful that you care enough to say it to me over and over again despite my stubborness, but I have a real problem with it. Your seeking method might be what Jesus wants us to do, maybe, but in that case we can not tell if we really find Jesus or not. Let me explain.
I mentioned confirmation bias before. This bias is when you form a theory, and then try to confirm it by isolating confirming evidence. It is a very powerful bias, we all do it. But it's like looking only for white swans to prove that all swans are white. It doesn't work. You are telling me to start with the conclusion that Jesus exists, and then wait for confirming evidence. That if I truly seek I will find. But in that case anything can become spiritual evidence for Jesus, even a delusion.
If Jesus was a human living in town, that would be a valid approach maybe. (reminds me a joke : the evangelist travels to mexico ; stops a man and ask him if he knows Jesus, the man answers « sure, he lives down the road next to the post office... ») anyway the point is, Jesus is not a human living in town, he is supposedly a supernatural being, when you talk to him and have contact with him, it is spiritually, subjectively, in your head, in your heart, however you want to describe it. You can be talking to Jesus and the person next to you will not notice. So it is a subjective experience. I'm sure it can feel very real. As real as the guy who thinks he has been abducted by aliens. See my point ? We know the brain does us some weird tricks now and then, making us believe things are real when they aren't, it happens all the time, there is no denying it. So my spiritual evidence for Jesus could be a delusion. The same kind of delusion you probably think affects the muslim when he thinks he is talking to Allah. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But doing what you advise me to do will not enable me to make the difference. That's my problem. How do I make sure I am not delusional if after seeking him I get in contact with Jesus ?
I can't. I just have my subjective experience to work with, and they are notoriously unreliable. Do any of you deny that subjective experiences are notoriously unreliable ?
So what can I do ? Since the beginning of this thread I gave this a lot of thought. I think it is important to look at the other religions too, to try to disprove the Jesus hypothesis you are pushing at me, to find out how probable it is that it is true. Standard scientific procedure.
I have to ask the question : what is so special about christianity's spiritual experiences that show they can't be delusions ?
Well, I'm affraid the answer is : nothing. People from other religions claim the same spiritual experiences than you do, and I mean, the same. Look it up if you don't believe me, talk to people from other religions, ask them directly like I have. What tips me off that delusion is extremely probable is that the religions advocating personal experiences as a way to « know » their God, like you do, are making otherwise wildy contradictory metaphysical claims. They just can't all be right. So some of them are, in fact, wrong. Maybe it is the hindoos who are right, maybe it's you, maybe it's Russell with his teapot, who knows? We have no way to tell except personal experiences and unfortunately personal experiences can only convince the person having it. So maybe there is some kind of god, but the likelyhood that it is Jesus I do not find very high, because the majority of the people on the planet do not believe in Jesus and think they have serious evidence for THEIR God in THEIR revealed book, which they quote at me like if it was any kind of authority, just like you do.
So none of this means Jesus is not real, but it give me doubts. It makes me think that having spiritual experiences is maybe something human brains do regardless of religion and that could be evolved. And I wonder if that in turn could explain the « god sense » most people seem to have. Some respected scientist are definitely testing that hypothesis and claim to have serious evidence in favor of it. Probability for me ? I'll say 70%.
(ahah ! You think, he is missing 4% ! well no, I just keep an open mind for other alternatives, I already gave 1% to aliens abductions after all. Who is the more open minded ? The person who keeps a small percentage available to alternative explanations or the person who thinks she has reached 100% knowledge?)
So I consider seriously the option that what you describe as talking to Jesus and that feels very real to you is the same as what the muslim describes as submitting to Allah, and is the same as what the weirdo from New mexico describes as being abducted by aliens, and is the same as what neurologists and psychologists describe has having a brain disfunctions.
And maybe it is not a disfunction at all, it is just more proof that God exists, that's how he does it, that's why people feel it everywhere ! Well maybe but then that is another circular argument that accepts God in its premise to prove that God exists and so we still need to prove God exists... (sorry for knocking down strawmen like that but I could just see it coming so like that it is out of the way).
And so maybe we're just apes with unperfect brains because we've evolved them. At least that hypothesis is testable and we have evidence for it.
A word about scripture :
Which book should I trust, if any ? That's another relevant question with the same answer : I can't tell. I can't rely on the bible to tell me whether the bible is right, that's too obviously circular. If you can do it with the bible then you can do it with the quran as well, and then we'll have a problem.
So what else is special about the bible ? I don't know, I don't see anything special about it. I haven't had time yet to look into the prophecy the aristocrat has provided me, but since I have already looked into the matter of prophecies in the past, I doubt there will be something really new there. Only checking can tell... The question remain : if there is uncontroversial evidence in the bible, why isn't the majority of the human population believing in the christian God ? Pride seems like a thin explanation to me. Especially when they also claim to have prophecies in their holy books.
Another problem is that despite what Magenta seems to think, a little hindoo girl in Mumbai does not have the same access to Jesus that a little girl in Texas has. Surely you recognize that. And lo and behold, there are more christians in Texas than hindoos, and there are more hindoos in Mumbai than christians. Where you are born matters and what religion impregnates the culture you belong to influences which God you are talking to in your spiritual experience. And it goes further. The people who do not have a strong religious influence in their life but are exposed to science and the media, when they have a spiritual experience, what do they believe happened ? That they talked with aliens. What do you make of that?
Note to B1Davanda : I do not really want to debate about the resurection here. I have read what I consider quite a lot of the apologist literature on the subject, as well as the scripture themselves, and have compared the views from both sides of the debate, and weighted the evidence, and then looked up some more into what I didn't understand, and read more books about the subject, and finally, came to the conclusion, about which even a William Lane Craig or a John Lennox agrees, that the resurection can only be accepted if you already believe in a creator god. It's a late show argument.
If it puts me in the position that I need to find out if any gods exist or not first, then I can't accept that a creator god exists as a premise to an argument that I'm trying to use to determine whether any gods exist, that would be circular. So the resurrection as described in the bible doesn't help me much. End of the debate about the resurrection for now, and back to the question : does any gods exist ?
Miri says :
I would just say that all other religions are counterfeit, a copy of the
Christians belief. They all believe elements of the bible but twist them a round.
I see how a christian would believe that, but try to put yourself in the shoes of a non christian and analyse what you are really saying. This is another fairly obvious circular argument : you could not reach that conclusion if you were not taking for granted that christianity is the one true faith. Don't take my word for it, ask them yourself, but muslim and hindoo and jews and mormons and all the other do think the exact same thing, only for them christianity enters the « other religions » category. So if it works for everybody it doesn't work for anybody.
So we haven't really answered the question of why is christianity special.
Also can you explain how the jewish torah is a copy of the bible ? It was written earlier, the bible is actually the copy in that particular case, isn't it ?
Magenta
I'd like to return the favor with this other interesting debate between Lennox and a man called Michael Shermer, who's views I find closer to mine than Dawkins. I have to say that while I disagree with Lennox, I find him articulate and well worth listening to as well. I wish more christians were like him.
Nayborbear :
Can't you make an effort at spelling ? I'm not trying to ignore your points but I can't read what you write, sorry.