# Culture War - Religious cannot win a debate so they start a war. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 12, 2006, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864 "2006-12-12T20:24:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Ammonius\_Saccus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@Ammonius\_Saccus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ammonius_Saccus)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/221 "2006-12-19T20:43:19Z")
[QUOTE=Ammonius Saccus] begbert2, would you care to respond to what I wrote in post 174 and 175? [/QUOTE] Sorry. I missed it. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/222 "2006-12-19T22:25:09Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] However, you are demanding proofs from **cosmosdan** (note the second s in his name) when he has been pretty consistent in explaining his cosmology as a personal experience and not really making a claim for an externally objective reality. You can offer an opposing cosmology and you can offer criticisms of what he has presented, but demanding him to “prove” his when he has not claimed it to be objective reality is simply playing games to “win” an argument rather than attempting to examine each others’ perspectives. Note the specific statement of his to which you responded: In other words, he has laid out a system of belief that you have claimed is objectively wrong. At that point, he is within his rights to ask that you prove his belief is wrong since he is not insisting on its objective reality while you are insisting on its objective lack. [/QUOTE] Well first, this sounded like at least a bit an assertion: [QUOTE=cosmosdan] For me it’s several personal experiences that have led me to believe there is indeed something more. My concept of what that might be has changed. I recognize that many people still want or need to see God as our Heavenly Father. I have no problem with people having awe and reverence for the marvel that is our universe. Many Non believers feel the same thing. At some point though I feel we need to see ourselves as equal parts of the whole rather than lesser parts. Rather than leave everything as God’s will let’s take responsibility and realize that it is our will that can make a difference. We can be grown up children of God or the universe can’t we rather than waiting for Daddy to make things better? [/QUOTE] Second, you even said it yourself, he ‘laid out a system of beliefs’. Sounds an awful lot like an assertion to me. Third, while I realize the language I was using was directed at him, my argument has always been ‘people who believes things they have no real evidence for are delusional’, nonspecific. He chose to argue against my point, so I directed my arguments against him. It’s easier than always using the general. Other points he has made make it easy to conclude that he does have some form of belief in god, and isn’t just playing devil’s advocate. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/223 "2006-12-20T19:05:11Z")
[QUOTE=hotflungwok] In order for me to attempt to assert that your belief is false, you have to have already told it to me, asserted it. You can’t prove a negative. I don’t have prove your belief wrong, you have to prove it right. You’ve already asserted it, I’m just pointing out that you have given me to real evidence to think you’re correct. [/QUOTE] Tom has explained it well and you seem to be grasping the point I’ve tried to make several times. There is a major difference between a person saying “This is what I believe” and “I want you to believe it too” An assertion of “I believe” is _not_ the same as “I intend to prove it to others” > [@](#): > > Saying ‘there is no god’ like that is an assertion, and I would expect evidence. However, I don’t say that. I say that we have no reason at all the believe god exists, and so it’s rational to conclude that it doesn’t. Here you say we, I assume that means mankind. That changes your assertion from what you do or do not believe to what everybody should believe. That places the burden of proof on you. Is that clearer now? I maintain that you are wrong in your assertion. A subjective experience is a valid reason. I draw my own conclusions about the meaning and source of my own subjective experiences. I also realize that because they are subjective in nature it would be unrealistic and futile of me to think they prove anything. They certainly can’t prove anything to anyone else. Still, until someone provides evidence that challenges my beliefs I will continue to hold them without feeling to delusional. > [@](#): > > Thinking about flight wasn’t delusional, because it could be seen around them. Thinking that man could fly when he couldn’t would be delusional. We can see the world around us. It must not be delusional to wonder where it came from. We experience our own consciousness and the varied powerful experiences it is capable of. It must not be delusional to wonder about the source of those. You appear to miss the point. The idea of flight, long before the technology became available, was nessecary for the reality of flight to actually happen. > [@](#): > > These people do not understand what objective means. There’s a lot of bad information, myth and tradition being accepted as truth. I don’t think I’d call it delusional when people accept things taught to them that many others accept as true without doing the independent research to decide for themselves. It might be intellectually lazy and a bit of emotional cowardice, but not delusional. > [@](#): > > How convenient. Do you know god exists beyond the measure of human science, or are you making up a reason that would preclude god being measured in reality? Of course I don’t know. There are questions that science does not answer. Much about our consciousness remains unknown. I’m simply noting that it is possible. I am saying I maintain the right to draw my own conclusions about what the answers of those unanswered questions _might_ be. I’d like my right to those conclusions to be treated with some respect, the same way you 'd like believers to respect yours. > [@](#): > > You want me to provide evidence that god doesn’t exist? Um, didn’t I just say you can’t prove a negative? You can’t put the burden of proof on me. You have made the assertion, it’s up to you to provide evidence for it. The problem isn’t that I haven’t convinced you, it’s that you have convinced yourself using evidence that wouldn’t hold up anywhere else. When other people look at that evidence and reject it, you do things like demand they prove you wrong, and that’s just not how it works. I hope you see now that this is incorrect. > [@](#): > > You’re preaching to the choir here, you know that right? It seems to me you are not understanding how subjectice and objective differs in a belief system and what that means in critisizing or judging them. > [@](#): > > Shrug, appealing to popularity doesn’t impress me. ‘Bob does X, and Bob is really good at physics, so X must be correct!’ or appeal to authority, doesn’t impress me either. Not my point at all. I also reject belief based on “lots of people think so so it must be true” My point was about your use of the word delusional. I think it’s incorrect. > [@](#): > > You might as well ask ‘Why eat cooked meat and wear clothes’. The answer is, it’s better. People working as a group can do more, better, faster than individuals working for themselves. Humans are social creatures, not solitary. All of the humans in a group benefit from the whole group, and are better off. Society is good. Anything that disrupts the function of the society is bad. Your original answer was no answer and neither is this. You’re assuming something without really thinking about it. Something you seem to criticize in others. What about a functioning fascist society where dissenters are executed? How about a controlled dictatorship where dissenters are executed? There can be a society operating efficiently and effectively in which murder is accepted as necessary to keep things running smoothly. You made an assertion and I asked you for evidence. You haven’t provided any. You just claim that it’s so obvious you don’t need to. It isn’t that simple. > [@](#): > > News to me. Much of religion is about this? Prove it. I echo Tom’s sentiment on this. If my statement about religious belief is news to you then you know very little about religion in general and perhaps should refrain from casting judgement until you’ve done a little research. briefly; > [@](#): > > John 15;12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends directing how we live together in the now, not just for future reward. and > [@](#): > > John 10;9 Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. 10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. {NLT} > [@](#): > > Yes, I’ve read it. Shrug, the beginning has nothing to do with the actual laws. No where does any of the laws invoke the gods. At no point does he say ‘Marduk says…’ Its all him. IMHO that’s nitpicking. Isn’t it written to please the God’s? Isn’t it an attempt to try and write down a code of conduct approved of by the God’s? It doesn’t meet the criteria of a secular document. I’m seriously interested in any code of conduct that is secular. Something actually attempted by a society or even just proposed. Perhaps none exists. I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/224 "2006-12-20T19:20:31Z")
[QUOTE=hotflungwok] Second, you even said it yourself, he ‘laid out a system of beliefs’. Sounds an awful lot like an assertion to me. [/QUOTE] Sure, but I also clearly explained that I’m not out to convince anyone that my beliefs are correct and theirs are wrong. That’s the key difference. > [@](#): > > Third, while I realize the language I was using was directed at him, my argument has always been ‘people who believes things they have no real evidence for are delusional’, nonspecific. He chose to argue against my point, so I directed my arguments against him. It’s easier than always using the general. Other points he has made make it easy to conclude that he does have some form of belief in god, and isn’t just playing devil’s advocate. Fair enough. I maintain that subjective evidence is valid for the individual in areas where there is not enough evidence for a solid conclusion. I also suggest that because most {perhaps all} evidence for spiritual beliefs is subjective then people should not expect to _prove_ conclusions reached through these experiences, but merely to exchange ideas and concepts. I also maintain that those without spiritual beliefs also draw conclusions from subjective experiences and make choices accordingly. That is an act of faith similar to what the believers they criticize do. Given the widespread nature and influences concerning religious beliefs I don’t consider delusional an appropriate term. If 100 people tell me X is true am I delusional to accept it or just unwise? How about several million? I acknowledge that isn’t proof or even solid evidence but it’s a powerful enough influence to make the term delusional inappropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/225 "2006-12-20T20:09:34Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] I don’t find them interesting because if there is a god (and I believe there is) I don’t fantasize that he is bound by the same laws of the universe that man is. It’s like the character A. Square in edwin Abbott’s _Flatland_ imposing his view of reality on the Sphere. It makes no sense to him, _yet it exists_. I think that God is much the same. We attempt to understand him, or the concept, with probably about 1% of the knowledge necessary to grasp it. [/QUOTE] I don’t find the “we don’t have the capacity to fully understand God” to be a persuasive argument. Since God is omnipotent, when he chooses to do something that’s beyond our comprehension it means that he has consciously selected not to act in an understandable way; he’s deliberately arranging his affairs so that we may not understand him, which seems somewhat odd considering both that he wants to be understood (if the people who say this are correct) and taking into account the fact that if he exists, the vast array of differing opinions mean he is misunderstood, with evil pretty uniformly profligating from this problem. And to take it right back to the beginning, he’s created humans who do not have the capacity to understand him, which has all the same difficulties. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/226 "2006-12-20T21:12:42Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] That is an ivalid disproof, since it falls only within omnipotence, and not requiring omnipotence to include logically inconsistent things (like creating a square circle) seems to be reasonable. Here is a brief sketch of how omnipotence and omniscience are inconsistent: First, I assume that omniscience includes perfect knowledge about the future. Since Christianity is based on prophecy, that seems a safe bet - otherwise the prophets who supposedly knew the future would be more powefful than God. Second, by omnipotence, if there are outcomes X and Y from some action A, (that are possible) God can cause either to happen. We’re not talking only about human actions - say we’re talking about when a leaf falls from a tree. Okay, say God knows that an action A will have a consequence X in the future. Can God change the action to produce result Y? If he can, then his knowledge of the result is incorrect, and he is not omniscient. If he cannot, then he is not omnipotent. Here are some of the objections to this, and why they are faulty. The first is the free will objection - since God granted us free will, he deliberately limited himself to not interfering. That’s an interesting thread by itself, and it’s been done, but we can consider purely physical actions, not involving people, so it is not a relevent objection. Second, God has decided not to interfere in this way. Whether or not there is Biblical support for this, we’re talking hypotheticals, so what is important is what God can do, not what he decides to do. In any case, if I claim to be able to fly, and refuse to demonstrate it because I “choose” not to use it, you might doubt my claim. Third, God has decided exactly what he’s going to do sometime in the distant past, so from here on in it is all set. I’m dubious that this addresses the claim, but even if it does, since God goes on forever in the past, there is a time before the time he decided. The action in that case might be if he is going to whack the holy winger at some point, but god can act even before he creates the universe. So, we can conclude that a God both omnipotent and omniscient is logically inconsistent, and cannot exist. Your atheist registration form is in the mail. 🙂 [/QUOTE] I wanted to take a crack at this. I’ve read it a few times and it doesn’t quite make sense to me. I can’t see how your logic works here. If God created physical laws such as gravity but also allowed for a force able to circumvent these laws , such as his will, then him changing the outcome of an event isn’t a violation of omnipotence or omniscience. He’s omnipotent because he could change any even, and he’s omniscient because he knows he can. What am I missing? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/227 "2006-12-20T22:01:28Z")
[QUOTE=cosmosdan] I wanted to take a crack at this. I’ve read it a few times and it doesn’t quite make sense to me. I can’t see how your logic works here. If God created physical laws such as gravity but also allowed for a force able to circumvent these laws , such as his will, then him changing the outcome of an event isn’t a violation of omnipotence or omniscience. He’s omnipotent because he could change any even, and he’s omniscient because he knows he can. What am I missing? [/QUOTE] Thanks for trying to understand it. Omniscience isn’t in the knowing he can change any event, but in knowing what will actually happen in the future. The problem comes from God knowing whether a particular event **will** happen or not. I’m sorry if I’m boring everyone, and I’m really sorry if this sounds condescending to some, but I’ll try to give a very specific example. There is a tree outside my window, and there is a particular leaf on a particular branch. If God does nothing, that leaf will fall, due to natural law, at noon tomorrow, Today God chooses to turn his attention to that leaf. Being omniscient, he knows that the leaf will fall tomorrow. Now, God certainly has the ability, through omnipotence, to prevent the leaf from falling. Say at noon today God sees the leaf fall tomorrow. Can God prevent the leaf from falling tomorrow? If he does, then his knowledge that the leaf would fall tomorrow is incorrect, and he is not omniscient. If he sees himself preventing the leaf from falling, can he then decide not to prevent it? If he can’t, he’s not omnipotent since there is now something simple, he can’t do. Is that clear enough? A possible solution to this dilemma is to say that God can’t affect the things he sees happening, and he can’t see the things he does affect. However this leads to big gaps in his powers. Remember the things he is doing and seeing have no particular logical inconsistency (unlike the rock example.) Now, say there is an entity which is omnipotent and not omniscient. This entity has no problem being truly omnipotent. Now, God is defined as the greatest possible - if there is a possible entity more omnipotent than God, is God really God? Another objection - this only affects God’s actions. This is true, but it limits gods actions and knowledge significantly. In fact, it is still a problem if you have two different entities, one omnipotent and one omniscient. (This is left as an exercise to the reader. 🙂 ) In fact, I think we can prove that omnipotence and omniscience cannot co-exist in the same universe. Thus, a God who is both is impossible, and **magellan01** ’s God cannot exist. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/228 "2006-12-20T23:01:14Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Thanks for trying to understand it. Omniscience isn’t in the knowing he can change any event, but in knowing what will actually happen in the future. The problem comes from God knowing whether a particular event **will** happen or not. I’m sorry if I’m boring everyone, and I’m really sorry if this sounds condescending to some, but I’ll try to give a very specific example. There is a tree outside my window, and there is a particular leaf on a particular branch. If God does nothing, that leaf will fall, due to natural law, at noon tomorrow, Today God chooses to turn his attention to that leaf. Being omniscient, he knows that the leaf will fall tomorrow. Now, God certainly has the ability, through omnipotence, to prevent the leaf from falling. Say at noon today God sees the leaf fall tomorrow. Can God prevent the leaf from falling tomorrow? If he does, then his knowledge that the leaf would fall tomorrow is incorrect, and he is not omniscient. If he sees himself preventing the leaf from falling, can he then decide not to prevent it? If he can’t, he’s not omnipotent since there is now something simple, he can’t do. Is that clear enough? [/QUOTE] I think so. Okay , just considering this example, are you assuming God might act out of a random impulse? If God acts to influence the world IMHO it is out of a spiritual circumstance. For the sake of argument, If God is omniscient then he would know when, where and how he would intervene. He might know when the leaf would fall if he didn’t, but he would also know that he would. You seem to be saying if God can’t change his mind and still be omnipotent and omniscient? Is that it? If so I think thats humanizing the terms a bit too much for them to have meaning. > [@](#): > > A possible solution to this dilemma is to say that God can’t affect the things he sees happening, and he can’t see the things he does affect. However this leads to big gaps in his powers. Remember the things he is doing and seeing have no particular logical inconsistency (unlike the rock example.) > > Now, say there is an entity which is omnipotent and not omniscient. This entity has no problem being truly omnipotent. Now, God is defined as the greatest possible - if there is a possible entity more omnipotent than God, is God really God? > > Another objection - this only affects God’s actions. This is true, but it limits gods actions and knowledge significantly. In fact, it is still a problem if you have two different entities, one omnipotent and one omniscient. (This is left as an exercise to the reader. 🙂 ) In fact, I think we can prove that omnipotence and omniscience cannot co-exist in the same universe. Thus, a God who is both is impossible, and **magellan01** ’s God cannot exist. Hmmmm IMHO the qualities of God are love and truth. So if I say God can’t lie does that mean he’s not omnipotent? Your proposition only works if you apply other qualities to God that are incompatible with God as the Supreme diety. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2006, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/229 "2006-12-20T23:25:55Z")
I think I see an out to **Voyager’s** omniscient/omnipotent problem, but i’m finding it difficult to put into words; please forgive me if it makes little sense. Say God comes along the leaf; does he choose to make it fall now, or will he leave it? If he will in the future decide to make it fall now, then he will already have known through his omniscience that he would do so. And if he chooses to leave it for tomorrow, then he will have known previously that that is what he’d do. He knows, in advance, what choice he will make, even though that choice is still a perfectly free one. So while God \*could \* choose to another option, he knows in advance that he won’t do so. He knows which choice he’ll make, so he does not face the conundrum of knowing what would happen in the future and changing it; because he knows he won’t. Or, alternatively, he already knows he will change his mind. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/230 "2006-12-21T00:38:39Z")
[QUOTE=cosmosdan] I think so. Okay , just considering this example, are you assuming God might act out of a random impulse? If God acts to influence the world IMHO it is out of a spiritual circumstance. For the sake of argument, If God is omniscient then he would know when, where and how he would intervene. He might know when the leaf would fall if he didn’t, but he would also know that he would. You seem to be saying if God can’t change his mind and still be omnipotent and omniscient? Is that it? If so I think thats humanizing the terms a bit too much for them to have meaning. [/quote] No such thing as a random impulse, in the sense that if God throws dice he knows ahead of time how it would land. Yes, God knows what his decision will be. The problem is that between the time he knows this and the time it happens, he can’t change his mind. I think you are edging towards the problem of when God makes decisions. See my very first post on this problem for some thoughts about that. And God has to be able to change his mind, or he is not omnipotent. He appears to in the Bible, but he might be lying about his decision. (See Jonah.) > [@](#): > > Hmmmm IMHO the qualities of God are love and truth. So if I say God can’t lie does that mean he’s not omnipotent? Your proposition only works if you apply other qualities to God that are incompatible with God as the Supreme diety. Magellan challenged me to disprove his god. I asked for some properties, and he gave both omnipotence and omniscience. If your god doesn’t have these properties, he’s not disproven by this problem. Which was my point - we can’t disprove all possible gods, but need characteristics of gods. You are right, if God cannot lie then he is not omnipotent, but I’ve not seen many Christians who claim this, so I don’t think it is a problem. Some do say that God for some reason cannot offer salvation except through Jesus, which is incompatible with an omnipotent god. Never having been socialized into this concept, it is one I just don’t get. The only way around this problem I see is if God is truly timeless - that is, for God, everything happens at once. I don’t quite see how omnipotence works in this model, since all decisions are frozen in amber in a sense. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/231 "2006-12-21T00:45:27Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] I think I see an out to **Voyager’s** omniscient/omnipotent problem, but i’m finding it difficult to put into words; please forgive me if it makes little sense. Say God comes along the leaf; does he choose to make it fall now, or will he leave it? If he will in the future decide to make it fall now, then he will already have known through his omniscience that he would do so. And if he chooses to leave it for tomorrow, then he will have known previously that that is what he’d do. He knows, in advance, what choice he will make, even though that choice is still a perfectly free one. So while God \*could \* choose to another option, he knows in advance that he won’t do so. He knows which choice he’ll make, so he does not face the conundrum of knowing what would happen in the future and changing it; because he knows he won’t. Or, alternatively, he already knows he will change his mind. [/QUOTE] That’s correct - he is perfectly free to choose before he sees the future, but after this he is not free to choose. But - and this is a repeat of a point I made in my first post on this topic - when does he choose. A truly omniscient god knows everything all the time. Since god is eternal for t \< 0 (0 being the creation of us) there is never a time before the time he knew what he was going to do about the leaf or anything else. If this is true, then there is no time when his choice was free. As **cosmosdan** said, this implies that God is not free to change his mind. It is an odd omnipotence that lets god choose to do anything throughout eternity at one point, and then locks him into those choices afterwards. Thanks also, btw, for taking the time to try to fathom this problem. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/232 "2006-12-21T00:47:23Z")
[QUOTE=cosmosdan] Sure, but I also clearly explained that I’m not out to convince anyone that my beliefs are correct and theirs are wrong. That’s the key difference. [/QUOTE] After a bit of thinking, I’ve kind of realized something. I don’t care whether you personally have made the assertion or not. My statement is blanket, it applies to anyone who believes in god. I don’t really care if you do or not, so I’m not really arguing against you personally. Religion itself makes the claim that there’s a god, and that what I’m arguing against. Let’s break that statement down. As far as I know, there is no objective evidence of god’s existance. I’ll go ahead and say ‘as far as I know’ because who knows, there might be, I haven’t looked at all evidence in the universe. Someone might be hiding it somewhere. Something as unrealistic as god should require some pretty hefty evidence to back it up right? I mean, you shouldn’t believe such a big claim without equally big evidence. So, seeing as how so many people believe in god, you’d think there would be piles of evidence around, as this would legitimize their claim. You would think that religion would be proud of all the evidence it had for this unbelievable claim and publish it, make it known, buy billboards and stuff, the converts would just roll in. But there isn’t. In all this time, has anyone put forth any real objective evidence that god exists? If they have, I haven’t been able to find it, and I really looked. I’m not making a claim about the existance of god, i’m making a claim about the evidence of god’s existance. The whole argument really kind of hinges on this. If there is any objective evidence that god exists, then it all falls apart. There’s no point in continuing this otherwise. So, if there is no objective evidence of god’s existance, then why believe in him? The idea of god is very illogical claim. God is attributed many unrealistic things. If someone were to make a claim equally as illogical but whole non-religious, people would expect some really good evidence supporting it. But god is given a ‘get out of logic’ pass for some reason. Of course, there are lots of people who say they’ve experienced god, but all of their experiences seem to be of the ‘it was personal and you weren’t there I just know’ kind of experiences. And these people can’t even agree on what they experienced or even believe about him. Some of them say he says they should hate, some of them say he says they should love, some of them say he says it’s okay to kill people, etc. You would think, with the attributes god is given, there would be some consistency, and less appearance of personal interpretation. Not exactly the kind of evidence you’re looking for in a claim like god. So we have people believing in something for which they have at best subjective evidence for. That doesn’t sound right at all. If people believe that there are little green men visiting us in flying saucers, they tend to be viewed as a bit crazy. If people believe that saying certain things and wiggling your fingers a certain way causes magical things to happen, they tend to be viewed as a little crazy. But when people believe there is an all powerful invisible being who created the entire universe (but didn’t need to be created cuz he’s eternal) that they can talk to and he will answer them (but it might not be the answer they want) and he loves everyone (unless you do the things on this list), and suddenly it’s ok. Well, I don’t think it’s ok. I think should they should be held to same standard that everyone else is. And that standard says that if you hold as true something for which there is no good evidence, then you are at least a little crazy. No, I don’t mean that they should be locked up in a room with padded wallpaper. I mean they should be treated the same way a person who believes in flying saucers or magical spells or psychic powers is: a bit crazy. Now, we have the idea that people are allowed to believe what they want without having to prove it, inside their own head. That’s fine, I’m all for it. But belief in god hasn’t been confined to people’s head for a very long time. There are huge powerful organizations built around the idea. They don’t leave it up to the individual, they tell people what they should believe. If you are X, then you believe Y. Someone being Christian implies that they believe god exists. Christianity itself is an assertion that god exists. > [@](#): > > Fair enough. I maintain that subjective evidence is valid for the individual in areas where there is not enough evidence for a solid conclusion. I thought about this for while too. And I still haven’t decided. While I can see that people who don’t have access to all the science and stuff that would help show them that god might not exist, there still had to be a point where someone approached them and said ‘god exists’ and they agreed. I would like to think that people would be rational enought to require evidence for that kind of claim, but I can see how less civilized societies might have much lower standards of evidence and logic. > [@](#): > > I also suggest that because most {perhaps all} evidence for spiritual beliefs is subjective then people should not expect to _prove_ conclusions reached through these experiences, but merely to exchange ideas and concepts. First, why should religion be allowed this exception and other things not given so much slack. And second, the huge powerful organizations I mentioned have for the most part supplanted the ‘personal’ part of religion. Its the religious organizations that tell you what you believe. Sure, there might be some individual variation, but the main tenets, such as the existance of god, don’t change. > [@](#): > > I also maintain that those without spiritual beliefs also draw conclusions from subjective experiences and make choices accordingly. That is an act of faith similar to what the believers they criticize do. While people do draw conclusions from subjective experiences, it’s a matter of degree, and of evidence. Say you get an itch on you leg and stop to scratch it and an out of control car flies up into the spot you would have been at had you not stopped. This is a subjective experience, and you can draw one of several conclusions. You can conclude that god caused the itch and saved your life. You can also conclude that it was just a coincidence. The first conclusions is a huge leap logically, considering that have no real evidence for it. The second conclusion is not a very big leap, and since you have no evidence that anything else was involved, and is probably a good one. It isn’t necessarily the right conclusion, but given what you know it’s the best you can do. This isn’t really an act of faith, but of logic. > [@](#): > > Given the widespread nature and influences concerning religious beliefs I don’t consider delusional an appropriate term. If 100 people tell me X is true am I delusional to accept it or just unwise? How about several million? I acknowledge that isn’t proof or even solid evidence but it’s a powerful enough influence to make the term delusional inappropriate. This is still an appeal to popularity. It really depends on the claim. If 100 people tell me that Snickers bars are good, I’ll try one. If 100 people tell me that god exists, I’m going to go look for some evidence. The type of claim determines the kind of evidence needed to support it, and since god is such a huge claim, its going to need to huge evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/233 "2006-12-21T00:58:09Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] That’s correct - he is perfectly free to choose before he sees the future, but after this he is not free to choose. But - and this is a repeat of a point I made in my first post on this topic - when does he choose. A truly omniscient god knows everything all the time. Since god is eternal for t \< 0 (0 being the creation of us) there is never a time before the time he knew what he was going to do about the leaf or anything else. If this is true, then there is no time when his choice was free. [/QUOTE] I’m not sure this follows through. There’s a difference between not being _able_ to make a different choice and not making a different choice. If God knows that he won’t move the leaf, it doesn’t mean he can’t, only that he won’t. That option is still open to him, he just knows he’s not going to take it. Imagine I give you a choice between either being given a delicious cake or having one arm cut off. You can predict that you’ll make the choice of having the cake, and then you make the choice of having the cake. Between your knowledge of what you’d pick, and your actual picking, was your ability to change your mind taken from you? No. Selecting the other option is still open to you. But you _know_ that you won’t choose it. There’s no possibility of you making the other choice because in order to do so there would have to be a change in circumstances which would be accounted for in your initial prediction of what you’d do. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/234 "2006-12-21T01:54:43Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] I’m not sure this follows through. There’s a difference between not being _able_ to make a different choice and not making a different choice. If God knows that he won’t move the leaf, it doesn’t mean he can’t, only that he won’t. That option is still open to him, he just knows he’s not going to take it. Imagine I give you a choice between either being given a delicious cake or having one arm cut off. You can predict that you’ll make the choice of having the cake, and then you make the choice of having the cake. Between your knowledge of what you’d pick, and your actual picking, was your ability to change your mind taken from you? No. Selecting the other option is still open to you. But you _know_ that you won’t choose it. There’s no possibility of you making the other choice because in order to do so there would have to be a change in circumstances which would be accounted for in your initial prediction of what you’d do. [/QUOTE] I covered this in my first post also, since it is a common objection. Since we’re talking hypotheticals here, what God does is not important, it is what he is able to do. The example I gave was me claiming to be able to fly, but choosing not to. I don’t think your choice is relevant, since they are not equal choices (and anything god does is, especially in my example.) In any case, if your arm had gangrene, and your stomach was terribly upset, you might choose differently. I can be farfetched too. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/235 "2006-12-21T02:21:48Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] I covered this in my first post also, since it is a common objection. Since we’re talking hypotheticals here, what God does is not important, it is what he is able to do. The example I gave was me claiming to be able to fly, but choosing not to. [/quote] But you flying isn’t something you are able to choose. God could choose not to do something; he doesn’t, but he is able to. The future is set in stone for an omniscient being (and the rest of us, of course), but that doesn’t mean they could not have chosen otherwise, only that they \*did \* not (or will not). Your cause and effect is the wrong way round - it’s not that God knows something will happen and then chooses what to do, he chooses what to do abstractly and thus the knowledge of what he _would_ do is his. I thought your point about you claiming to fly and refusing to prove it was more an example of not trusting claims of omnipotency, rather than if it was logically possible, which is a different matter entirely. > [@](#): > > I don’t think your choice is relevant, since they are not equal choices (and anything god does is, especially in my example.) In any case, if your arm had gangrene, and your stomach was terribly upset, you might choose differently. I can be farfetched too. Why would they be equal choices? They’d only be equal to a totally neutral God, and if we’re talking about the Christian one he certainly isn’t supposed to be. Adding extra conditions like a gangrenous arm is what I meant by changing circumstances being accounted for in your choice. If you had an bad arm/upset stomach, your choice would be different, but you would not have chosen differently given those circumstances. You could, but you don’t. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/236 "2006-12-21T04:06:05Z")
[QUOTE=hotflungwok] After a bit of thinking, I’ve kind of realized something. I don’t care whether you personally have made the assertion or not. My statement is blanket, it applies to anyone who believes in god. I don’t really care if you do or not, so I’m not really arguing against you personally. Religion itself makes the claim that there’s a god, and that what I’m arguing against. [/QUOTE] I like the calm demeanor of this post, and will endeavor to emulate it. The first thing I’d like to say is, I am not now and never was arguing that God exists. (Maybe other posters were; I wasn’t.) I am arguing against the idea that you have to be insane to believe in God. I think that a perfectly rational person can believe in God, _especially_ if they were indocorinated into the belief, but even if they weren’t. [QUOTE=hotflungwok] Let’s break that statement down. As far as I know, there is no objective evidence of god’s existance. I’ll go ahead and say ‘as far as I know’ because who knows, there might be, I haven’t looked at all evidence in the universe. Someone might be hiding it somewhere. [/QUOTE] It should also be noted that, as far as I know, there is no objective evidence of the _non_-existence of God. The best that can be done is to disprove theistic claims about things God has supposedly done in the past, relating to observable events on earth. You can prove that there was no flood if you like, or that the earth is more than 600 years old. (Assuming that the observable evidence hasn’t been tampered with, anyway.) Proving these things might rock the world of certain fundamentalists, but the OP wasn’t targeting fundies; it was attacking theists in general. And, generally speaking, God cannot be disproven because we can’t study everything, and he’s presumed to be a sentient being who is aware of the studies to there’s you can’t double blind him or assume that his non-interference events that are studied will be indicitave of the level of his interference with events that _aren’t_ studied. That is, there are always lots of prayers we _didn’t_ study and maybe he influenced those; no way to tell. [QUOTE=hotflungwok] Something as unrealistic as god should require some pretty hefty evidence to back it up right? I mean, you shouldn’t believe such a big claim without equally big evidence. [/QUOTE] Now, this is going to sound strange, but please take a moment to think about it. Why do you think that an arbitrary person would immidiately come to the conclusion that god is so extremely implausible? He’s similar to what most people experience all throughout their formative years. They are constantly under the supervision of adults who have much more knowledge and power than the person. They dictate rules with rewards and consequences. They can be appealed to for favors, some of which are granted, some are denied, some are ignored. God is very much like a parent. Eventually people grow up a little, though. They are, of course, constantly operating within the limits of society, of a government, which has a great deal more power (and usually more knowledge) than they. This government dictates laws with rewards and consequences. And it can be appealed to for favors, some of which are granted, some are denied, some are ignored. Society too is very much like God, in functional terms. So, why should the _default position_ of a person, especially children but including adults, be that it is _inconcievable_ that the universe in general operates on a similar model to the one they are familiar with from family and society? Sure, we look around and can’t actually _see_ a Big Parent, but we figured out the ‘existing while out of sight’ thing a long time ago, after seeing people walking out of the room and coming back intact enough times. Yeah, there’s no obvious set of rules written in bold print across the sky, but there certainly seem to be people receiving what could easily be rewards and consequences: being struck by lightning, getting aids, and the like. And when people do something silly like cry out to the sky for aid, well you guessed it: sometimes their wish is granted, sometimes it’s ignored, or maybe denied. (It’s kind of hard to tell those two apart when you can only see the effect.) So at a glance, absent any further information, I don’t see why God’s such an outrageous idea. He’s just more of the same-old-same-old, writ large. Plus, when science does weigh in, almost none of science even speaks on the subject of a parental or anthropomorphic god; and _none_ of it definitively disproves such a being. The only thing that’s actually _denying_ the existence of god are atheists. And why should they change their belief just because somebody else doesn’t share it? Oh, and you ask why we-the-society think of UFO-believers and finger-wigglers as a little crazy, and not religious people? Well, first off, we don’t even think of those two groups as crazy for the same reasons as each _other_. Why should the reasoning(s) be expected to apply to religion as well? The finger-wigglers are crazy for a really obvious reason: it doesn’t work. If they wiggle their fingers and were thereby able to reliably achieve a predicted result, then they’re not crazy. (Typically, they’re doing some kind of trick.) If they keep wiggling their fingers and nothing happens, and it’s pretty frikking obvious that nothing is happening, and they keep insisting that something’s going to happen that doesn’t, then they’re crazy because they’re denying demonstrable reality. Belief in God avoids the finger-wiggling problem because God is presumed to be intelligent, and to occasionally refrain from performing in every instance as a result of a conscous decision on his own part. So perfect success is never _guaranteed_, and when critics are watching, he could be choosing not to making the expected result occur _because_ the cameras are rolling. Assuming he exists, he _clearly_ is in no hurry to definitively settle the question about his existence. Why assume then that he could be ‘fooled’ by a scientific study? Regarding UFOs, I actually hadn’t noticed us thinking that people who merely _believe_ in aliens to be crazy; it’s only the ones who think that aliens have come _here_, _recently_, that we think are loons. This is because we have radar. We assume that if aliens were zipping around in our atmosphere, they would have been noticed by now by the various governmental and scientific poeple who are skywatching and reported forthwith. Unless of course there is a _secret government coverup conspiracy hiding them_ :eek:, which is nuts for pretty much the same reason as the UFOs: somebody would have noticed and told us about it through “credible channels” by now. A handful of individual testimonials isn’t credible, in the face of continued denying silence from the authorities who should probably have noticed it happening. It also helps that UFO-sighters are massively outnumbered, both globally and regionally. If 80% of the people claimed to have been abducted by UFOs, we wouldn’t be calling them all crazy; we’d be hiding out in bunkers. God avoids the UFO problem because he’s presumed to be undetectable except at moments of his own discretion, and to have some affection for people believing in him without him hammering the point in by leaving obvious evidence. All the places that he’s supposedly interacted with reality are theoretically examinable, and sometimes we bother to and prove it didn’t happen or find some other explanation, but there’s still lots of events both in the bible and in the subjective experience that science has nothing to say about, so it’s quite easy to suppose that the wrong things were ‘metaphorical’ (Jesus did use a lot of parables) and the other bits that haven’t been explicitly disproven actually happened. And of course lots and _lots_ of people believe in God. So many so that the atheist is the fringe group. This does not make the atheist crazy, but it also supports the idea that the thiest is _not_ crazy; it’s not insane to believe arguments from popularity or authority after all. Such things have no place in a formal proof, but very few people frame their beliefs in terms of strict logic. It’s normal not to. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/237 "2006-12-21T04:10:53Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] I don’t find the “we don’t have the capacity to fully understand God” to be a persuasive argument. [/QUOTE] Really? Let’s say for a moment there is no god. There are all manner of things we do not fully understand, right? Gravity, the beginnings of the universe, quantum mechanics, dark energy, how spiders know how to build their webs, how and why the placebo effect works, etc. Some thoeorists believe there are 11 dimensions, some believe in multiverses, brane theory, etc. So even if there is no god there is plenty of stuff we do not know and may never know. Now, given these realities, IF God created it all, what makes you think that he would be easier to understand than these things? We would agree that man’s knowledge is continually increasing, maybe even accelerating. We would probably disagree how much of the progress bar representing all knowledge has been filled in. I don’t think it will ever be filled in all the way. Is man destined to possess all knowledge? 90%? 50, 20, 10? Where are we on the scale right now? Any answer is a leap of faith in and of itself. ---
**Author:** ![johnny\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a87d85/32.png) [@johnny\_M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnny_M)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/238 "2006-12-21T04:17:56Z")
Christians worldwide beleive that God has already revealed himself through Jesus. If this is the belief then they need not explain any further. You can accept or reject the teachings. It should not be forced on anyone like the right winged nuts try to impose. I personally beleive that Jesus spoke the truth and his teachings were of love, forgiveness and non-judgemental. The thing that convinced me the most were his disciples. While Jesus was alive these 12 walked, talked, lived and witnessed his miracles yet they were cowards. After Jesus was put to death on the cross they could have said “well thats that” and went back to their normal lives but didn!t. I would really like to know what transformed these cowards into mighty lions willing to suffer horrifing deaths for this man. Maybe this is a new forum, sorry if it is. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/239 "2006-12-21T04:27:51Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] Really? Let’s say for a moment there is no god. There are all manner of things we do not fully understand, right? Gravity, the beginnings of the universe, quantum mechanics, dark energy, how spiders know how to build their webs, how and why the placebo effect works, etc. Some thoeorists believe there are 11 dimensions, some believe in multiverses, brane theory, etc. So even if there is no god there is plenty of stuff we do not know and may never know. Now, given these realities, IF God created it all, what makes you think that he would be easier to understand than these things? [/quote] Because God has reasons to want to make himself known and understood. A non-god involving universe has no motivation to make itself understood; it has no motivation at all. > [@](#): > > We would agree that man’s knowledge is continually increasing, maybe even accelerating. We would probably disagree how much of the progress bar representing all knowledge has been filled in. I don’t think it will ever be filled in all the way. Is man destined to possess all knowledge? 90%? 50, 20, 10? Where are we on the scale right now? Any answer is a leap of faith in and of itself. It doesn’t matter. I’m not saying that a universe with unknowable things in is impossible or even unlikely. I’m saying that if the Christian God created a universe with unknowable things, and acts in a way we cannot even begin to comprehend, that that contradicts his goal of getting people to know him and means evil ensues from the inevitable clashes between factions that disagree on their understanding. As an omnipotent being, he could do what he wants in a way that we are able to understand; that he deliberately chooses not to would not be a benevolent decision. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864/240 "2006-12-21T04:57:34Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Which natural laws am I holding God to here? [/QUOTE] For instance, the opportunity to have only one event take place simultaneously. Or the possibility of god hitting rewind. Or of god doing one of a billion other things that we cannot even fathom. [QUOTE=Voyager] Logic is the only law I’m appealing to here - and it is generally accepted that God cannot do anything logically impossible. Like lifting a rock he made too heavy to lift, for example. [/QUOTE] That’s what I’ve been saying all along! You’re just constructing contradictions and attempting to dress them up so they look like some deep philosophical enquiry. “Can God build a round cube? Can God build a triangle that doesn’t have 180 degrees? Can God add one and one and get seven? Can God both foresee an even happening and have it not happen?” **Revanant** explored this with you along the same lines that I did earlier. But you want God to state the future and therefore lock it in. Well, what if God doesn’t state the future? Maybe it’s not a thing God does. And if God is this ideally perfect being, unerring in every way, why would he ever need to change his mind about future events? [QUOTE=Voyager] Did you ask about this problem in Sunday school, and what did the nuns say? In my first response I already gave the common objections and my response to them. [/QUOTE] She slapped an eraser on my desk and sent me to see Sister Theresa who had me stand with my nose in a corber for the rest of the class. [QUOTE=Voyager] There are no internal inconsistencies in the universe. You said there were inconsistencies, if only apparent ones, I am just wondering what they are. If God did create the universe, I think he did a better job than you think he did. [/QUOTE] The inconsistencies I was referring to had to do with our knowledge, not Him or His doings. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/culture-war-religious-cannot-win-a-debate-so-they-start-a-war/383864.md?page=13)