How to recognize evidence for God

Debate Room
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Can any atheist please explain what kind of analysis they’d perform on something presented to them as being evidence for God?

I’ve debated many atheists (all definitions too) over many decades but they always go quiet or evasive when asked this simple question.

The atheist claims that they have never seen evidence for God, but how can they be so sure? how do they know if this or that is or is not evidence for God?

I’ve come to realize that most atheists have no such process, no test or analysis, they simply assert “that’s not evidence for God” to whatever it is one might present to them.

Given that attitude, what point is there even trying to show them evidence? how can they prove they are being honest and objective when they can’t even share their technique for performing such an evaluation?

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Already answered more than once.

Can you please offer a single example of the many good reasons you claimed exist to believe the gospels have a supernatural origin? All you have offered so far is risible argumentum ad populum fallacy citing the subjective beliefs of biblical scholars and theologians.

How do you know “if this or that is or is not evidence for God?” If you are in a position to analyse evidence better than us then tell us how you do this, as I am extremely dubious given how relentlessly irrational your arguments are, and the fact you don’t appear to know the difference between objective evidence and bare anecdote, and you can then offer your best evidence and analyse as an example. I will have my popcorn ready.

I don’t believe you based on my interaction such churlish responses from heists are based on their own dented egos and the emotional investment and bias they have in their religious beliefs, as you have demonstrated, you’re also relentlessly dishonest, just read todays posts for evidence of that.

You haven’t tried, all you have offered is irrational arguments riddled with logical fallacies and unevidenced assumptions, you have lied, been evasive, and relentlessly tried to hide behind argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacies to evade your burden of proof. I mean look at this ridiculous thread, if it’s pointless then leave, why come back after six months ban for your previous evasiona dn dishonesty, just to troll with this nonsense.

See another lie, I gave you an expansive example today of my analysis fo your argument for a deity, you haven’t bothered to respond and are now lying that no one has done this. Why should we bother with someone so relentlessly dishonest as you?

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Since you’ve asked here is an example of you making a claim based on unevidenced anecdote and subjective bias.

Very disingenuous claim again, since like all words there is a dictionary definition based on common usage, and we saw later this was just a duplicitous attempt to reverse your burden of proof, a theme you have stuck to dishonestly as you clearly can demonstrate not one shred of objective evidence for any deity, or you’d have dones so.

Those howlers right from the start,don’t imply you have expertise in analysing evidence that the atheists here do not, and since you have offered no justification for that hubris, the best response is to highlight where you have made poorly reasoned and irrational arguments and unevidenced claims. For all those neutral observers you seem think your rhetoric is impressing.

There’s another howler in your second ever post, agnosticism and atheism are obviously not mutually exclusive. I am an atheist because I hold no belief in any deity or deities, and when the claims theists make are unfalsifiable I must also be an agnostic. How much confidence can we have in your rather priggish claims to have a superior ability to analyse evidence when you can’t get simple word definitions correct.

Oh look I found an answer to the question you claimed no atheist has answered from February, so 7 months ago I answered ti, as well as the one I gave today:

I will also note that in all the time you have not even tried to demonstrate any objective evidence for a deity. Reading your attempts I am not convinced you understand what it means.

A more obvious point of course is that the deity you worship is traditionally claimed to be omniscient and omnipotent, so it could easily make me aware that it existed in a way that left no roof for doubt.

Lets not forget that @Sherlock-Holmes disbelieves in all the deities I do, except one, and he has failed to offer any objective difference between the deity he imagines is real, and the rest.

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You wouldn’t recognize proffered evidence if it were handed to you on a plate, so what is to be gained by my presenting any to you?

Be honest Sheldon, your worldview is that nothing that exists whether you’ve seen it or not, can be evidence for God, all potential evidence has therefore already been discounted by you before even seeing it or considering it.

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Ad hominem fallacy champ, it seems fitting you resort to your usual irrational assertions, again the inference is too clear now for anyone to miss.

You are in no position to question the integrity of anyone else, given how relentlessly dishonest you have been. I cannot be held responsible for the fact your arguments are poorly reasoned, demonstrably irrational, and devoid of any objective evidence.

That’s a poisoning of the well fallacy, so it is clear now, as it has been through, that your irrational superstition is just a subjective belief, that you can’t demonstrate any objective evidence to support. You’ve peddled the usual line in apologetics, just with a lot less integrity than many others have achieved. Your spiel is now looking more and more like trolling from sour grapes.

Again anyone can see my post, and see your petulant response, and see you’ve addressed nothing that was said, with even a pretence of honest debate.

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Which atheist?

I’m identified as atheist and I’ve never said this. I’ve heard all sorts of evidence of god/s. It’s just not been very compelling evidence.

I’d bet dollars to donuts that the evidence you’ve heard for the existence of that critter living in @Tin-Man’s garage isn’t compelling to you. What technique would you use for determining it’s not compelling?

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I’m starting to get the impression that this person isn’t the sharpest pencil in the box.

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No. That which is godlike, may simply be some unknown technology we are yet unaware of. We are not the ones professing to know of god or Gods. We leave that supposition to the theists. Whom, by the way, seem very capable of knowing that which is not yet evidenced in any way and can not yet claim to be known in any verifiable way.

My response is not evasive at all. Do you think you can identify a being called God? By what criteria would you presumably know this thing? Even if you were introduced to heaven itself, you could not demonstrate there was such a place.

Evidence is very simple. ‘That which comports with reality.’ Reality is very simple. Reality is testable, verifiable, quantifiable, and capable of independent verification. Without these attributes, there is no reason to assume the assertion of ‘real.’

You are of course, incorrect. When God claims have measurable outcomes in the real world, they can be tested. ‘The validity of prayer’ for example. Over and over we have seen, no justification what so ever for the magical hand of god being influenced by any kind of prayer. On the other hand, the very idea of prayer interferes with god’s perfect plan, and were he to intervene based on prayer, he would be ‘altering his plan.’ Something, God would not or could not do, based on his own biblical teachings.

If you think you have some evidence for the existence of your God thing, I would love to hear it. Cite just one, one specific piece of evidence that links directly to a god and demonstrates, ‘There is a God.’

I can share my technique. (3 laws of logic) (Rationality) (Scientific Method.) It’s really simple. Give me something that holds up, and I will have to admit that your version of god is real. If, for example you say, “My god is a toothbrush.” Well, we all agree that your god exists, but of course we have to wonder why you are calling it God. Now you will have to justify other God claims. “It answers prayers?” Really? Now that is something I would like to see. Can you demonstrate it?

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Present some and you will find out, each time you have done this do far, you have dishonestly run away from the response, or lied and resorted to attacking the person responding.

It’s hard to imagine a more obvious lie, and this thread is testament to this. You know atheists don’t find your unevidenced anecdotal rhetoric very compelling, from personal experience as you have just said, so you’re attempting a poisoning of the well fallacy, and it is pretty hard now not to see your relentless dishonesty as an attempt at revenge by trolling.

How do you know, you don’t believe in every single deity that I disbelieve exists, except one. If your ego is so immense you think you alone among all the posters here are able to recognise evidence for a deity then share that acumen with us, but I suspect this is complete nonsense of course, and is just a petulant reaction we often see from people with a very closed mind who have such a large emotional investment in a single belief they are incapable of examining it critically themselves.

So your empty rhetoric and pseudo intellectual posturing, and all your demonstrably irrational arguments that string known logical fallacies together intandem, has failed to convinced any atheists you’ve met? Can’t say I’m surprised as if there was a scale of apologetics I’ve encountered, then yours would certainly be near the bottom.

I guess we will never know, since you have fallen right out of the gate, but again I suspect this has more to do with your hurt ego and your inability to understand what a strong rational argument is, and the fact your posts suggest you don’t know what objective evidence even is.

As I said initially having had your irrational arguments thoroughly exposed, you don’t have the intellectual honesty to accept those criticisms as you are quite obviously very closed minded. Even more ironically and by way of evidence for this, your OP in this thread is the clearest use of a poisoning of the well fallacy I have seen.

“Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal fallacy where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say.”

[LINK](Poisoning the well - Wikipedia

I think one more word it would be useful to define for our self styled genius of analytical reasoning, and that is exits.

Exists
verb

  1. have verb

3rd person present: exists

have objective reality or being.

If a deity exists then demonstrate it has objective reality.

Meanwhile just to show I do support claim with evidence, here an example of the kind of unevidenced rhetoric you reel off as if it represents compelling evidence.

That is the very definition of a purely subjective anecdotal claim, you might as well be telling your favourite colour and insisting we all agree it is the best.

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How to recognize evidence for God

Based on @Sherlock-Holmes’s contributions, I will take a stab at his methodology, though he’s not remotely offering anything original of course:

  1. Never ever let your blind belief in unevidenced superstition be subjected to critical scrutiny.
    a) Even your own.
    b) Ignore posts that do and attack the poster.
  2. Take particular care to avoid making rational statements, whilst using the word logic copiously as if this rhetoric makes them rational. Like people who put the word fact at the end of assertions in emboldened capitals.
  3. When your arguments are exposed as irrational, lie in a way reminiscent of a school playground taunt, such as “no you are”.
  4. When asked for objective evidence, waffle, for example:
    a) Pretend you don’t know what the words mean.
    b) Then act dumb and become reticent when the definitions are explained.
    c) Go on the attack by asking ludicrous questions like "what evidence would atheists accept for the belief you hold, but that they don’t.
    d) Don’t forget to pretend that anything that is not immutable can’t be described a fact, go farther and pretend objective facts have the same reliability as unevidenced subjective religious beliefs because they could change at any moment. laugh to yourself when you post this idiocy.
  5. Accuse them of being closed minded, even though being dubious about poorly reasoned and poorly evidenced ideas is not remotely what closed minded means.
  6. Pretend that being gullible and suggestible are in fact being open minded, even though that is not at all what that phrase means.
  7. be steadfastly biased in favour of your favourite deity, even though there is no more objective evidence for it than any other deity, then pretend this is not the very definition of being closed minded.
  8. When scientific facts contradict your religion’s ludicrous claim to have immutable truths, lie that science is based on “faith” the same as religious beliefs.
    a) Walk quietly away from anyone who points out that faith and religious faith are two entirely different meanings of the same word.
  9. Be sure to use at least one appeal to authority fallacy by trotting out the unevidenced subjective beliefs of a credentialled scientist or mathematician.
    a) Accuse anyone who points this out of being unscientific.
    b) Simultaneously accuse anyone using solid scientific evidence to challenge the fallacy, or who accurately points out the methods of science bear no resemblance to religious faith, of using scientism.
    c) Never admit that scientism is a bullshit phrase made up by apologists to misrepresent confidence in the methods of science.
    d) If they keep presenting rational accurate arguments that demonstrate that the methods of science are incomparable with the closed minded bias of religious faith, taunt them that science is their religion.
    e) If anyone posts the definition of religion as a challenge to this taunt dishonesty ignore it, and move on.
    d) If anyone claims science is the best method we have, howl like a banshee that they are closed minded and using scientism, ignore all responses beyond broad sweeping misrepresentations of what they’ve said.
    e) Don’t forget to pretend in a generic sweeping way that the collective subjective religious beliefs of biblical scholars about magic is a scholarly opinion. Thus combining an appeal to authority fallacy with an argumentum ad populum fallacy.
    f) Move quietly away from anyone who points out these fallacies, quietly using the “no you are” taunt from above.
  10. On no account start offering your best reasons for believing in a deity, what is not offered for scrutiny cannot be challenged.
    a) Use at least one poisoning of the well fallacy, by falsely pretending your reluctance to demonstrate any objective evidence to subject your beliefs for critical scrutiny, is to avoid an a priori bias all atheists have. Laugh to yourself at how cunning the lord is in his wonderous works.
    b) Steadfastly and dishonestly refuse to be drawn on a) above. If you find it hard just sing Jesus wants me for a sunbeam to yourself, use earplugs and a blindfold if this helps.
  11. When you feel the moment is apropos, or you’re about to be banned for your relentless dishonesty, flounce like a drag queen whose outfit has been insulted at a parade.
    a) If you get the timing wrong and are banned, be sure to come back and blame the atheists using 5 above, then flounce.
  12. Be sure and tell the atheists how biased and closed minded they are before you leave, even though you are the one who is clinging to an idea you can neither objectively evidnece or rationally defend, like you’ve found a bag full of magic relics from the crucifixion.
  13. Skipping 13 like any good superstition should. There were only 12 disciples remember, the bad one hanged himself to create this superstition.
  14. Feel good about yourself and your vapid superstition, and how you put the heathens in their place. Maybe reinforce this with some hymns, onward christian soldiers is a great one for this.
    a) While singing remember lies for Jesus make the devil cry.
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So why are you even here asking then? You are on an atheist forum asking them for evidence for god, how did you think this was going to go?

Like most religious people, I don’t think you understand how evidence or epistemology works. @Sherlock-Holmes what evidence do you think you have, and what epistemology do you use to come up with god being the solution? Saying “all potential evidence has therefore already been discounted” just lets you off the hook on proving your claim.

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Precisely correct, and he used this poisoning of the well fallacy in his first half dozen posts as well, here’s a quote:

Note this is itself unevidenced rhetoric, he offers nothing beyond the bare claim and rhetoric to support this fallacious claim. The obvious response is why does @Sherlock-Holmes believe he can set a special biased criteria for his religious belief, rather than subject it to the same standards of critical scrutiny as all other beliefs, as of course such bias is the very definition of closed minded. One wonders what criteria @Sherlock-Holmes sets for his disbelief in all the deities I disbelieve, but for one exception, and wonder we will as he has been dishonestly ignoring all requests to offer any objective difference, or to offer some objective evidence that his deity exists.

the word objective never fails to ge tapologists ranting about bias, yet it is in the defintion of the word exist, so if anyone claims a deity exists (outside of their imagination) then objective evidence is essential.

Existence
noun

  1. the fact or state of living or having objective reality.

So we see it is @Sherlock-Holmes who is indulging closed minded bias, and not the atheists who simply asking for sufficient objective evidence, and he can pretend he doesn’t know what that means all he wants, but that kind of dishonesty ought really to be called, and usually is on here of course.

Again his early responses exposed this precisely to be the case, not among my first requests for some objective evidence for a deity:

Note his answer gives no objective evidence, just a subjective claim, and an inherent assumption this claim is “evidence” for a deity. I am still none the wiser as to why the universe is being described as rationally intelligible, it seems like nonsense to me, and even were that not the case why would this be objective evidence for any deity?

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I didn’t ask for evidence for God, reread what I wrote.

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So what would it take for evidence to be compelling for you?

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Specify the terms “sufficient objective” that’s exactly what I’ve been asking here.

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You started a thread to re-hash your irrational and disingenuous poisoning of the well fallacy, and as @TheMagus points out, this is clearly an attempt to evade proper critical scrutiny of your beliefs, and try and reverse the burden of proof and put it on those who don’t share your belief, which again is irrational, since it is the very definition of an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.

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Well @TheMagus is in error, I did not ask for evidence for God.

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If I asked what would be sufficient evidence for black holes or climate change most intelligent people would answer but when I ask the same question pertaining to God everybody runs around like headless chickens.

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I specified that 7 months ago when you came here, and several times since, and you have yet to offer a shred of objective evidence.

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So then, please point me at said post.