Well the question is unequivocal, just tell everyone the best reason / evidence you have for believing any deity or deities exist.
lol I can just imagine what the responses will be to this thread. 
Yep ā¦ although when you think about it: the only person (or at least, the first person) they have to convince is themselves and if you identify as a theist, youāre already convinced.
What surprises them every time is that whatever is so compelling to them, wouldnāt be compelling to everyone, and worse ā it would be something others would be by turns repulsed by, or (worst of all!) indifferent to.
I have tried to come up with evidence and/or a line of reasoning that might indicate the existence of God (or gods), as I amāafter all-- a professional science fiction writer in addition to being a nurse.
In a recent debate (which was moderated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson) at the Hayden Planitarium, there was serious consideration of the idea that the Universe may be a computer simulation.
Evidently, the mathematics of string theory seems to resemble many of the qualities of error-correcting software, and a quark seems to follow some of the same rules as a byte of computer information.
When I followed this debate, the idea occurred to me that the speed of light (as an absolute limitāin all frames of referenceāas to how fast information can travel) limit of the Universe may exist as a result of the processing speed of the computer server that hosts the entire cosmos.
This raises the question of who manufactured the computer . . . although this question can introduce a hypocritical double standard, because the question of who made the computer seems like a reimagining of the watchmaker argument whenāfor all we knowāthe computer may have existed eternally.
My next conjecture about Godās existence requires an eternal, cyclical Universe that expands and contracts as it recycles itself.
A point about infinite numbers that escapes a lot of people is that a lot of common sense ideas donāt apply to infinity, as we think of infinity as a very large number whenāin factāinfinity is endless, and this has implications when making arguments about Godās existence.
As an example, suppose I have a trillion decks of cards mixed together and that I randomly shuffle these cards and deal out poker hands for an infinite amount of time.
The odds of dealing a thousand royal fushes in a row are so astronomically low that itās unlikely to happen in the lifetime of the Universe . . . yet in an infinite time of dealing poker hands, there areāliterallyāan infinite number of times when I will deal a quadrillion royal flushes in a row after fairly shuffling these decks between dealing out hands.
What does this mean about Godās existence?
If we consider Fred Hoyleās analogy about junkyards, tornadoes, and 747 airplanes, then I believe that there is a 100% chance that the mass of the Universe may have randomly assembled itself into a Universe-sized intelligent being, which began to manage and control its environment . . . and we may as well call this being God.
I donāt see how these speculations could be called scientific, as I donāt see how these ideas could be falsified.
Even so, I feel justified in having an open mind on the idea of Godās existence.
My mind is open to the existence of some god-like mechanism or being, but not to what most people think of when they speak of a capital-G God.
Iām wondering if youāve ever heard of the mostly unknown genius, Peter Putnam? He spent his life developing a theory of mind that might be useful if you are trying to come up with the premise of a novel on these topics.
In essence, he believed that the human mind is an entirely different genus of computer than the computers the human mind has heretofore invented. One that does inductive reasoning and not mere deductive reasoning.
He wondered how such a mind would operate, mathematically and practically, to develop its own insights about reality and its own goals. His basic insight is that it has a single underlying objective: repetition. At first such a mind thrashes about randomly, until it hits on some pattern that it can repeat, then it gradually refines that pattern in ever more sophisticated cycles.
This fits with your speculation about infinite amounts of time producing results that seem godlike.
The main problem with the notion of the universe or some aspect of it being intelligent or godlike lies with one of Putnamās secondary insights, which is getting some research attention today: to function as a human mind, that mind has to be embodied. It needs the sensory feedback mechanisms. I would guess that if a form of inductive consciousness could exist outside a biological substrate at all, it would seem quite alien and, dare I say, ineffable to us humans.
Time well-spent reading this utterly fascinating piece of investigative journalism about the reclusive Putnam, who was himself, a complete original:
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Thank you very much for posting this. I will get into it further when I have time.
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I think they have to re-convince themselves every day. This article piece just confirms to me that it is just something they āwantā to believe in.
Despite this, Christians still struggle with believing the biblical account because it doesnāt match up with our perception of reality. We may believe that Jesus was a real person, we may believe that He died by crucifixion at the hand of the Romans, we may even believe that He led a perfect life according to Godās Law, but we donāt āseeā how faith in Christ makes us righteous before God. We canāt āseeā Jesus atoning for our sins. We canāt āseeā or āperceiveā any of the great truths of Christianity, and, therefore, we struggle with lack of faith. As a result of this lack of perception, our lives often do not reflect the fact that we really believe what we claim to believe.
My mentors / handlers back in the day referred to this as āpositional truthā ā it is aspects of oneās alleged sanctification / regeneration that is imputed to our credit but will not fully manifest in this life. What they didnāt conclude, but should have, is that this makes most of the supposed benefits of the so-called ānew life in Christā aspirational and fundamentally unrelatable. Personally, I think these teachings exist mostly to promote self-loathing and feelings of inadequacy and therefore dependency on the ideology for constant reassurance. It is why most such Christians cannot even conceive of anything resembling happiness, confidence or contentment apart from being constantly awash in the dogma, the scriptures, the rituals, whatever their sect emphasizes. Without this reassurance they feel like what they are (human beings) rather than what they are āsupposedā to be (triumphant Christians living the āvictorious Christian lifeā).
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As I have said in the past, I still believe all deities, devils, angels, demons and all other supernatural beings were created by ancient and superstitious people ages ago and as such are mythological. I really wish people would grow up and live in the new scientific and technological millennium.
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That, my friends, is the blunt expression of a view sometimes called āscientismā.
Itās my black beast, my devil, the thing in todayās world I stand against. The source of so much evilā¦
Scientism and fanatical fundamentalist āreligionsā have this is common: they are a fundamental denial of the human mindās capability to address fundamental questions of existence and human flourishing rationally. And scientism is the dominant view, even among the āreligiousā. Why has the landscape of ethical, political or religious debate becomes a yelling match? In short, scientism. Why are we seeing a collapse of literacy, when education has become little more than job preparation? Scientism. Why are we surprised when more and more people flee into emotional, tribal thinking? Itās the fruit of scientism.
Please provide the data used and methodology employed to draw these conclusions.
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What sort of methodology would you find satisfying? What kind of experiment or test would you propose?
You made some assertions. I asked upon what data you based your conclusions what methodology you used to derive those data. Is your response to my questions a dodge?
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Yes, maybe a littleā¦
But I have also discovered from conversations here that folks have their own version of what is rational and methodologically sound. So this is an appropriate prefacing question.
The statements your are asking about are not fully demonstrated conclusions, they are perhaps better presented as hypotheses. But they are not random. Rather, they are based on a causal understanding of, and extensive experience with, what a reduced conception of human reason does for public debate and education.
I especially saw it when teaching ethics to medical professionals. Many really came to see how a different kind of thinking, a different sort of methodology, was necessary to approach ethical questions, but that these could be approached rationally, and even rigorously.
I would have approached this differently. I would have asked why does it appear that most illiterate people are religious.
But to answer that question, we need to come to an agreement as what āscientismā is. So I am asking @TheMetrologist what he thinks it is.
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Thereās no such thing as scientism, it is nonsense made up by people who want to decry the best method we have for understanding reality, because it explains reality without the need for or evidence of any deity or deities.
Evidence that claim please? Or I am calling bs.
BS, unless you can offer more than a bare claim, and you appear to be preaching now, not debating.
Evasion, give the best reason you have to support your claims, or theyāre made up bs.
Something is rational if it is in accordance with the principles of logic, and there is only one version. And this has nothing to do with you refusing to evidence sweeping claims.
You presented nothing but bare claims.
āQuod gratis asseritur, gratis negaturā
Another bare claim, it is dismissed in the same fashion.
And another bare bare claim, and again it is dismissed in the same fashion.
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I would add the following:
- Empirical observations. You can make logical constructs that are unrealisable and false when applied to the real and observed world, so you need empirical observations to weed these out.
- The parsimony principle (a.k.a. Occamās razor), in which an explanation of a thing or event is made with the fewest possible assumptions.
I do not agree with the condition that there must be only one version, as even with the updated definition with empirical observations and parsimony, you can have competing rational scientific explanations that explain a phenomenon equally well. However, with new observations and further theoretical developments, the alternatives can be narrowed down.
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As evidenced by his posts, displaying his ignorance of logic, @Sheldon is a troglodyte of a culturally post apocalyptic world. His basic belief is an extreme form of scientism:
Yes, Sheldon, I just made an ad hominem argument. But in your case, itās perfectly legitimate. We can engage in conversation again but youāll need to learn a bit of dialectic first. Start with looking into why ad hominem arguments are not always material fallacies.
In my experience, āscientismā is mostly used as a slur by people who reject rational explanations and the value of scientific methodology and its results, and instead rely on/cling to supernatural thought processes like (but not limited to) religious dogma. The people using the term āscientismā very often seem to be affected by cognitive dissonance.
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Hereās a starter definition. Scientism is the denial of philosophy as a legitimate form of knowledge. Hereās a test, drafted by Mortimer Adler for his colleagues in 1941, to evaluate the extent to which your intellectual life is dominated by scientism. Scientism - as a denial of philosophy - is the belief that all or most of these statements are false. How many of them do you hold to be true?
- Philosophy is public knowledge, not private opinion, in the same sense that science is knowledge, not opinion.
- Philosophical knowledge answers questions which science cannot answer, now or ever, because its method is not adapted to answering such questions.
- Because their methods are thus distinct, each being adapted to a different object of inquiry, philosophical and scientific knowledge are logically independent of one another, which means that the truth and falsity of philosophical principles or conclusions does not depend upon the changing content of scientific knowledge.
- Philosophy is superior to science, both theoretically and practically: theoretically, because it is knowledge of the being of things whereas science studies only their phenomenal manifestations; practically, because philosophy establishes moral conclusions, whereas scientific knowledge yields only technological applications; this last point means that science can give us only a control over operable means, but it cannot make a single judgment about good and bad, right and wrong, in terms of the ends of human life.
- There can be no conflict between scientific and philosophic truths, although philosophers may correct the errors of scientists who try to answer questions beyond their professional competence, just as scientists can correct the errors of philosophers guilty of a similar transgression.
- There are no systems of philosophy, each of which may be considered true in its own way by criteria of internal consistency, each differing from the others, as so many systems of geometry, in terms of different origins in diverse, but equally arbitrary, postulates or definitions.
- The first principles of all philosophical knowledge are metaphysical, and metaphysics is valid knowledge of both sensible and supra-sensible being.
- Metaphysics is able to demonstrate the existence of supra-sensible being, for it can demonstrate the existence of God, by appealing to the evidence of the senses and the principles of reason, and without any reliance upon articles of religious faith.