[QUOTE=Liberal]
For the same reason that we believe that neutrons exist when there is no Biblical evidence of it. Science is no more the proper tool for examining God than prayer is for examining gravity.
[/QUOTE]
You know after reading the thread title this soon after Polycarp’s last Pit thread, I was hoping that the Xians were being set up… No fun for Ford today I guess 
On a more serious note, whether or not one accepts that God could/should/would be shown to exist through empirical means, the “facts” for me are that if said God cannot avail himself to make himself known, without doubt to be the vindictive, to-hell-burning-guy that some claim him to be in my physical universe then that “God” is for all intents and purposes non-existent.
I don’t care if there no such thing as a Spectro-Love-Oh-Graph therefore God, it’s irrelevant. For those of you who don’t believe in the Hellfire and BrimstoneTM God you can ignore this mini-rant 
but for the rest, If the non-visible, non-needed-being-to-explain-anything-that-is-at-all-needed-to-be-explained expects people to believe or burn for a fucking eternity? Well, I don’t care how much I don’t want to burn, I am not buying that product. Ever.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Please don’t contribute to the equivocation. I know that you know better. Just because two words are spelled the same doesn’t mean they mean the same. A god posited to explain gravity or love or fire is not the same entity as the God we worship. And this isn’t a modern thing. Metaphysical inquiries independent of physical inquiries have gone on for as long as we’ve had records of peoples’ contemplations.
[/QUOTE]
Are you claiming that the concept of god did not have roots in the explanation of the physical world? The separation you mention had occurred (for some) by the time of Plato and Aristotle, but theology was already sophisticated by then - at least in Greece.
Certainly even 200 years ago many relgious Americans saw god as the explanation of the natural world. I’d say that the God you worship - and that most Americans worship - is an evolution of the explanatory god, with some still believing in that god.
Nonetheless my claim isn’t that people today believe mostly because God explains the natural world, but rather that they believe from a long history of forced belief to a god that started from its explanatory power.
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
But, see, I think that’s what frustrates me, at least. You [Theists, generally, not you specifically] get this feeling, this sense, and think it means something, that it’s something that exists outside of your brain, objectively.
I don’t mean to be insulting here, but to me it sounds a lot like a delusion, albeit a culturally acceptable and encouraged one, and it frightens me that over the course of history, so many decisions have been made, and there’s been so much, both public and private policy made on behalf of that feeling.
[/QUOTE]
Cap’n A, do you get this feeling, this sense, of heat and pain when you touch fire? Do you think it means something, something that exists outside your brain? I can point to you exactly where in the brain varous neurons are firing that result in the qualia of heat and pain. I am sure a qualified team of neurophysiologists and neurosurgeons could implant various electrodes and have you experience the same sensations, no Matrix needed. Would that mean that fire is less real? Is fire a delusion, albeit a culturally acceptable and encouraged one?
To the op: we humans tend to believe in God-concepts because we are wired to, because it has been adaptive to do so at the level of individual selection on an evolutionary timescale. The specifics of the god-concept are culturally based. (The analogy here is the wiring to learn a language and the learning of a specific language.) At the level of society god-concepts have also been adaptive: as an early expression of understanding “why” (folk science); as a basis for the axioms that are the bases of laws; and to facilitate group membership (us/them). Thus our wiring and society each make belief the default state to have evidence provided against for the typical individual.
And none of the above makes for an argument against belief or for it, even though I am a sort of soft pantheist myself.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
There’s a reason you use a phrase, rather than a single word, to convey the idea of “belief in God”. You do that because “belief” and “God” are not the same thing. If they were, you would need only one word and not three. Science detects the belief, but not the God.
[/quote]
Does it really matter, though? We know the belief exists. There doesn’t need to be a god in order for the belief to exist. I don’t really understand what your god does.
I’m not “blaming God”…I don’t think there’s a god to blame. But people act for a reason, and sometimes the reason is belief in gods.
[QUOTE=feli8]
We address self-proclaimed psychics and mediums as lunatics, but praise those who devote themselves to God. A bit contradicting, dont you think? Both of these cases lacks scientific evidence, living in the twenty-first century, we should know better on whats “made up” and whats not. Man has always wondered the origins of their existance, and of course naturally attribute this to some ommnipotent being that they assume as the creator of the universe. But seriously, we should know that this is all just some hocus-pocus that ancient man has made up to address the question of their existance…
We all know that the universe came about because of the Big Bang and we came about through the natural process of evolution( Not from Adam and Eve ). All, this are solid scientific facts right in your face and not some fabled tale made up by others…
So, whats the debate about the existance of God?
[/QUOTE]
Faith, I guess.
Even if you believe in the Big Bang, what caused it?
What was “here” before the Big Bang?
[QUOTE=xtisme]
Dunno. You tell me. IS ‘God’ outside of the natural, observable universe? If so, and if we can not measure his/her/its effect on the universe, can’t detect ‘God’ at all, and have zero physical evidence of ‘God’…well, then whether or not ‘God’ exists kind of becomes a moot point, no?
[/quote]
How is it that it seems impossible for some people to see that all concepts are equal in their unprovability? The concept of ‘impossible’ is itself unprovable yet you use that word all the time.
And I say ‘the latest science’ is only as good as today. ‘The latest science’ two hundred years ago knew nothing of penicillin. ‘The latest science’ would have said that space flight was an idiot’s imagining in 1800.
Here are my two points:
Could be anything. Could be Dark Matter for all I (or you) know. I’m wiling to accept that the current explanation of transmission of electrical impulses is plausible, but I don’t for one moment think that means that theory will never be disproved at a later date when science is more sophisticated.
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
.
But people act for a reason, and sometimes the reason is belief in gods.
[/QUOTE]
Rather, a concept of ‘gods’ that is skewed. Which is the fault of flawed human thinking and nothing more. People also foist evil on one another because of nationality, gender, language, desire for sex, and whether or not the person has cut them off. And the blame for every action lies squarely within the brain of the individual carrying out the action and not on any external factors, including the existence of a deity.
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
I’m not “blaming God”…I don’t think there’s a god to blame. But people act for a reason, and sometimes the reason is belief in gods.
[/QUOTE]
Again, spoken as someone with no belief in a designing God with a plan or who takes sides, I still have always loved that line - [Jimmy Stewert]God uses the good ones and the bad ones use God.[/Jimmy Stewert]
Toss out the various creation myths. I don’t know about other religions but Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all hold that God has revealed himself to humanity. That is something that science cannot, as yet, tell us about. Maybe it was actually Flying Spaghetti Monsters messing us about? Billions of people believe that the revelations were of divine origin.
[QUOTE=FordPrefect]
On a more serious note, whether or not one accepts that God could/should/would be shown to exist through empirical means, the “facts” for me are that if said God cannot avail himself to make himself known, without doubt to be the vindictive, to-hell-burning-guy that some claim him to be in my physical universe then that “God” is for all intents and purposes non-existent.
[/QUOTE]
Then you will allow the same for science, I reckon. If there is a man somewhere to whom speciation cannot be made known, then for all intents and purposes, no speciation actually takes place?
With respect to [1], what you actually know is that there is a correlation between limbic system activity and religious experience. A person may experience such a thing without believing in God. With respect to [2], it is a contradiction. Belief, in the sense used by Jesus, implies an object upon which you rely. To believe in means to rely on, trust, or cling to. And finally, with respect to [3], I understand what you’re saying, and I have no problem with it. I can tell you what He does, but you still will not know until He tells you Himself. I don’t mean that in any condescending or snarky way, but it’s just the nature of the thing. Faith depends on a revelatory epistemology.
My claim is very simple: the word “god” (or God) has multiple meanings. Ignoring their differences is classical equivocation. It’s like the man who argues that since America is the land of the free, we should all get free beer. But "free"means two different things in those contexts.
Science does the same thing. Every discipline does. And you have no problem with it. You are not confused that someone is talking about a ratio between a baseball play (force) and a catholic ritual (mass) when he defines acceleration, are you? And you wouldn’t allow a man to argue against Newton by equivocating that way. It shouldn’t be done with respect to the faithful, either. It is not the case that we all believe in a god of fire or any alleged descendant of same.
As a matter of fact, it makes no difference whether God created the universe or not. It serves His purpose all the same.
I didn’t watch the linked lecture, but I have read a lot of what Persinger has written. He is very careful in his wording – much more careful than many who describe his work – and would never claim that belief in a god is electrochemical activity in the brain. He really doesn’t take sides. He describes what happens.
I don’t think you are being insulting at all. You seem to be politely honest. Imagine for a moment that you had a little brother that was born blind. He hasno concept of what sight is. He cannot imagine how you can possibly know when your mother is coming when she is still walking a block away. How can you possibly convey to him what your experience of sight is like?
What if I were to claim that God has told me that God loves me, or that God reassures me when I’m hurt? Would those be evidence that God loves me?
I’m honestly not trying to start an argument here, but I’m quite sick of countless threads wildly proclaiming that I and 90% or so of Americans are deluded or brainwashed.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Then you will allow the same for science, I reckon. If there is a man somewhere to whom speciation cannot be made known, then for all intents and purposes, no speciation actually takes place?
[/QUOTE]
No, not at all. Speciation does not claim to burn non-believers in hell forever for not believing. It is the demands of that type of God and his non-physical presence that are incompatible.
[QUOTE=Zoe]
He cannot imagine how you can possibly know when your mother is coming when she is still walking a block away. How can you possibly convey to him what your experience of sight is like?
[/QUOTE]
If you are going to resort to this sort of near condescension, then it would be nice if you could provide any evidence that you can do anything like “know when your mother is coming” or have anything like a completely different sensory ability. It’s one thing to have feelings and beliefs based on internal experiences: we all have those. It’s quite another to claim that they have some external basis or implication.
Liberal is fond of mentioning that calming Ramachandran quote that tries to assure believers that they need not take any further theological conclusions from the research in question.
What that quote fails to mention, however, is that this particularly adroit idea of God in this scenario can be consistent with anything, any finding about the brain at all. And while the research can thus never, of course, prove that some elaborate unbounded scenario with no testable elements is not the case, it does completely undercut the insistence that we must jump to this particular conclusion, there supposedly being no other alternative. We now have an example of a perfectly plausible alternative.
While it’s true that science is far from the only possible way, in theory, of knowing things, the reason it keeps coming up is that it, and evidence-based epistemologies in general, are really the only plausible options anyone has ever offered as to how people of all different sorts can ever have cause to agree on anything about the external world and have an external means of confirmation, available for view by all.
However, that’s the fatal flaw of the OP. Not everyone cares about being able to presently convince others in the first place.
[QUOTE=FordPrefect]
No, not at all. Speciation does not claim to burn non-believers in hell forever for not believing.
[/quote]
Nor does God. Some human members of some faiths interpreted some scriptures to say that.
Huh?
[QUOTE=Apos]
While it’s true that science is far from the only possible way, in theory, of knowing things, the reason it keeps coming up is that it, and evidence-based epistemologies in general, are really the only plausible options anyone has ever offered as to how people of all different sorts can ever have cause to agree on anything about the external world and have an external means of confirmation, available for view by all.
[/QUOTE]
How is this about ‘the external world’? And how many people demand proof? I think by definition it is actually atheists who are having trouble with cause to agree about this. There are more believers than unbelievers at the moment and they all agree, without proof, that there is a Divine. They may disagree on the form of the religion they use to relate to it with but not on the fact that it exists.
Therefore your premise that the majority of humans require scientific proof in order to believe things is false.
[QUOTE=harveyc]
Faith, I guess.
Even if you believe in the Big Bang, what caused it?
What was “here” before the Big Bang?
[/QUOTE]
An extraordinarily dense pin-sized speck of matter.
As for the OP’s question, “we” don’t believe in a god, some people do. I believe there may be something up there, but then again, people believe aliens are among us. These people are generally regarded as “weirdos”. What’s the difference with people who believe in a god? Just like with the belief in aliens, there is no proof that one exists.
The flaw many people jump to is they assume that since science can’t prove there is a God that equals that science proves that there is no God. Ironically they make a flaw in the scientific method that they put their faith in.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
The flaw many people jump to is they assume that since science can’t prove there is a God that equals that science proves that there is no God. Ironically they make a flaw in the scientific method that they put their faith in.
I think it’s more of a case of people not finding any evidence at all that there is a god, and deciding that they have better things to do.