Why do you believe any deity, or deities exist? Please provide the best reason / evidence first

Debate Room
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Yes of course, by definition they’re entirely subjective, at least as you’ve presented them here anyway. Also note, I am not challenging the claim you hear voices, as I said auditory hallucinations are extremely common in the general populace, and of course are documented as higher with a condition like schizophrenia. Your claims about the source of those voices is entirely subjective thus far.

Well why would there be, since higher beings is an unevidenced subjective religious belief. Also you were looking for how Psychiatry diagnose hallucinations, you claimed it was just a biased subjective claim doctors make, if you have a citation from any credible scientific source to support that then by all means present it, with a citation.

Dearth means a scarcity or lack of something?

Same as before, they don’t reflect objective reality.

Not mine, it’s the OED’s which reflects common usage, and that claim is purely a subjective claim, not a fact.

Music when there was no source for it, my father’s voice after he had died, many others over the years, who knows what our brains store away over a lifetime.

Straw man, please don’t paraphrase my position. Use the quote function please.

I already told you I never made that claim. However you’re edging towards a false equivalence here, as human beings exist as an objectively verifiable fact, and some of them go online to debate things, again this can be objectively verified.

  1. I never claimed you were real
  2. That’s a false equivalence, see above.

By all means present some objective evidence, something more than a bare claim, until then I must remain disbelieving, especially as medical science is at odds with your claims.

I gave an answer, you seem to have either misunderstood it’s significance or don’t like it, FYI you never said the question involved an imaginary or hypothetical deity, so goal posts moved there. Hypothetically I’d need sufficient objective evidence a deity exists and that a deity was confronting me.

Ok, but this is another bare subjective claim.

Your brain is the mechanism, we only ever see such claims from functioning human brains, never in the absence of them. However I don’t need to offer any alternative to your claim, to assert any claim gains credence in the absence an alternative explanation would be fallacious, an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.

Last day, going to finish early to lessen the hellish drive home on the M4, and then I am off until the 5th Jan…woohoo…

Edit update: Drive was a doddle, home safe and sound, woohoo (again). :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

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God exists, and He is American.

Here’s my best reason (I probably have more evidence than certain actual religions):

He showed up on TV, and people personally surrendered to Him. If you say that you can’t see Him, you are colorblind. You probably can’t see certain colors from visible light. He’s so unmistakably vibrant that His makeup team (praise be) had to darken His skintone a bit so the viewers can focus on what He’s saying, instead of being totally blinded, like they’re staring straight into the sun or the Big Bang itself.

I predict that his “closest pal” will die of cancer, and they’ll blame God for it. Trust me, this prediction is 100% true.

A deity is merely something or someone you assert yourself to be, and the result of people believing that assertion.

EVIDENCE:

  • My neighbor downstairs, who received a neat little curtain and matching headwear from the Hands of God Himself during one of His sublime gatherings.
  • He let His Handsome Face be defiled by a projectile moving faster than Light to show us that He can bleed. That His Eyes show that He too… is Man.
  • His Face is that of a Handsome octopus crossed with a sausage. If that’s not the face of a deity, I don’t know what is.

P.S

He is following his long-term vision of the future. Whether or not that vision is for you in particular is another question.

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lol that’s gaslighting. A common prank trope in television.

Did your doctors run tests after making your diagnoses so they can legally ask those questions?

Again, that’s gaslighting. You do not know Sheldon’s medical history to ask such a loaded question.

The best is Hitchen’s Razor. It’s safe to dismiss any argument or debate until your opponent presents further evidence supporting their claims.

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His Color alone can evoke feelings of sadness! Praise be to God!

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Did you just describe David Koresh? :joy:

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I’m not implying the person is hallucinating. I’m asking them what criteria they use to determine that reality is real.

No, they didn’t. My doctor asked me if I heard voices and then prescribed me medication.

Again, I want to know what criteria Sheldon uses to determine when and if things are real.

I see no evidence that the voices I hear don’t have a basis in some stable, coherent reality, so I’ll use Hitchen’s Razor to dismiss the assertions from the medical community that they are in fact hallucinations.

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Either that question is worded poorly, or it’s tautologically redundant. If it’s not real, then it’s not reality, obviously.

Ive explained this already? They reflect objective reality, the more evidence supports this the more reliable the claim, the earth is not flat is an objective fact, all living things evolved slowly over time is an objective fact, my dad died almost 14 years ago is also an objective fact. Me hearing things that are not part of objective realityare not objectively evidenced at all are more likely to be an hallucination created by my brain.

Oth that the fact they only exist in your mind you mean? Do people around you hear them at tge exact same time and in the exact same way?

It doesn’t apply, since there is no objective evidence tge voices exist outside of your mind, as part of objective reality.

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Maybe this argument, if acceptable, would help?

No subjective experience ever qualifies as objective evidence.

Because if it did, then everyone’s subjective experiences of inner voices would qualify as objective evidence. Then, if someone doesn’t these voices, their experience of reality is faulty. Which would then mean that anyone not hearing these voices is not experiencing reality correctly. Which would then mean that billions of people are not experiencing reality correctly. Which would then mean that the term ‘objective reality’ becomes meaningless, because, at any given time, almost all of the human race (by this argument) isn’t experiencing it properly.

I therefore submit that we either accept that no subjective experience ever qualifies as objective reality or we accept that objective reality doesn’t exist for anyone not hearing inner voices.

I offer this argument up on the back of my dealings with Christians over the years who have insisted to me that they heard the voice of the Holy Spirit talking to them. They claimed that he was objectively real and that they were therefore experiencing objective reality.

Thank you,

Walter.

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Richard Dawkins cruelly answers audience question

To continue about subjective experiences not qualifying as objective evidence…

Dawkins should just have asked the Christian how his subjective experiences of Jesus and the Holy Spirit qualified as objective evidence for these things.

The key point here is that objective reality is a shared and common experience, not an purely personal one. On that basis alone nobody’s personal experiences can ever qualify as objective because they cannot be shared and they cannot be commonly experienced by anyone else.

All anyone can do is report them. Just as the Christian reported his to Dawkins, mistakenly believing that his subjective experiences qualified as objective evidence. But they don’t.

Nobody’s subjective experiences ever qualify as objective evidence.

Thank you,

Walter.

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No one’s personal subjective experiences ever qualify. What’s needed is intersubjective, identical, simultaneous, quantifiable experiences to begin to rise to the level of actual evidence, and even then, there’s some potential for seeing things that are misleading.

This is why the religious are always busy ginning up shared experiences such as worship where everyone has very similar feelings. They need things to point to that, superficially, meet the above criteria, but really don’t.

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I agree, mordant.

But the Bible itself tells us that even reported shared experiences within its pages don’t meet the necessary criteria of objective evidence. And I’m not just talking about the discrepancies between gospel authors about certain events. There’s a passage in the gospel of John where a crowd of people, all at the same place and at the same time, couldn’t agree as to what they experienced.

*27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. *
*28 Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” *
29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine.

You see?
Three different versions of the same event. Some said they heard thunder, some said they heard an angel speaking and the apostle John reports that god himself spoke those words.

That sounds an awful lot like some of the church meetings I’ve been at where tongues were spoken but the congregation and the elders couldn’t agree as to what was said or meant.

Hopeless!

Not objective evidence of anything but the pervasiveness of human subjectivity.

:roll_eyes:

Walter.

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Good afternoon, MrDawn. I’m new to the room and looked at some of the different questions and responses; but, I found your post intriguing as to the difficulty “so many people struggle with a lack of faith?” Just curious as to what’s your thoughts on that. Thanks.

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Thanks for your post, Walter, and you’re right with regards to three versions of the same event that differ in their accounts of what happened. But, we must remember the same is always true when multiple folks are present at the same event (e.g., a house fire). Some focused on how many firemen showed up, while another eye witness focused on the cat that was rescued. And, a third witness was more interested on how big the house was and where/how the fire started. Three different eyewitnesses and three different “versions;” but, it just goes to show that their focus was different even though they were at the same fire. And, it seems to me that’s why there were some differences in the Gospel accounts.

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I’ll await Walter’s response with interest. But I will say that back when I was still a believer, studying at Bible Institute, we had at least 1 book that I recall entitled Harmony of the Gospels that sought to deal with all the discrepancies between accounts of specific events in the Gospels. Some of those discrepancies are not a big deal if you’re not a literalist / inerrantist like we were. For example, the order in which events are said to occur can differ on just the basis you mention, but for us, it was a rather large problem because events can only happen in one sequence and if the Bible is “verbally and plenarily inspired” then only one sequence should be presented and any deviance from that has to be a translation glitch or other misunderstanding. It was rather … shall we say, limiting.

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There are a few reasons for many differences in the gospel accounts and a quick study will show you they are more to do with the timeline and motivation for the production of the gospels, rather than any misreporting.

Remember, they are not eywitness accounts at all, which renders your argument as moot.

Edit: spelling

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Well, before I respond to you JC, I first need to know how you regard the Bible.

That’s because the point I was making only holds good in the framework of a literalist, inerrantist stance, where the Bible is considered to be the inspired and infallible Word of God. If you don’t share in that, then there’s no disagreement between us.

Of course eye witnesses will disagree about what transpired at a certain event. Having said that, Old_man_shouts_at_clouds point is pertinent. In no way can the gospels be regarded as eyewitness accounts.

So when I say that eye witnesses will disagree about events, my saying that isn’t an acknowledgment on my part that the gospels ARE eye witness testimonies. I’m just agreeing with you generally about the disagreements that happen between people.

Now that I’ve outlined my position more carefully, perhaps you would be so kind as to reciprocate and inform me where you stand on the Bible?

Thank you,

Walter.

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Thanks for your response, Mordant. I’m familiar with the Harmony of the Gospels and well-aware of the differences you mentioned. But, thankfully, faith isn’t dependent upon a literal interpretation of the events; what’s important is what happened in them and, in the case of Jesus, what He did in them to prove who He said He was/is.

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If you’re not going to use a literal interpretation of the bible (or any “holy” book), you still need to interpret it(*). And since you cannot in any reliable or believable way ask the assumed author(**) of the book for guidance, all you have are non-literal interpretations made by believers with an agenda, whether that is an explicit or implicit agenda. So as long as you cannot get direct guidance from the author(s), all interpretations will be heavily influenced by people in power that have a clear agenda (they want to stay in power). Thus, the interpretations of e.g. the bible will in reality be expressions of the human society power structure throughout times. One can therefore argue that what you believe (your faith) and the laws or directions derived from such a book are qualitatively essentially no different in their origin than faith, laws or directions that emerge from secular beliefs and practices.

(*) and which version in which language you interpret is important to consider, to avoid interpreting things lost or misrepresented by translation. In that respect, one can argue the muslims do the logically consistent thing, where the original arabic is the only authorative version.
(**) Whether you ask the author that first put the words on pergament in ink (i.e. unknown humans) or the author that dictated or “inspired” the book (the so-called god) makes no difference. They are equally unaccessible.

Since no gods or supernatural beings have ever been proven to exist, it makes no logical sense to talk about a literary person depicted in a book by anonymous authors be proven to be the son of an unproven god.

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Good morning Get_off_my_lawn. Thanks for writing and sharing your thoughts. I’d be curious to see how you came up with your name; my hunch is that you had some neighbors whose dogs “did their thing” in your yard and didn’t clean it up. hahahaha :joy:

Regardless, as I read your comments regarding our not being able “in any reliable or believable way to ask the assumed author of the book for guidance,'“ my initial response is “The same is true with any historical document,” regardless of what field it may be in. It matters not if we’re an atheist, agnostic, theist, etc., in reality we must believe those writings “in good faith” that the one writing them as accurately recording them during the time he/she wrote them.

Likewise, we must look for other source documents written around that time–while also examining any evidence that existed (e.g., archaeological) to support the “truths” being stated in the book. And, that’s why we can believe the eyewitnesses’ account in the Bible because of the additional information that’s given (both within and externally). The fact that accurate names and places are given (from other historical records) further attest to their validity and authenticity.

Likewise, we must approach the Bible like a forensics detective who looks at the evidence in an objective way, not with preconceived ideas or biases. That way we’ll be like Sgt. Friday in the television sitcom years ago, saying “Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts.”

Likewise, when we look at other things in life even in a scientific way (e.g., Second Law of Thermodynamics), it doesn’t take long to realize that everything had a Cause and grand Design: for it’s impossible for there do be such unbelievable symmetry and harmony in nature apart from these.

Penny for your thoughts.

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Good morning, Old_man_shouts_at_cl. Great name! Just wondering if we’re about the same age and what the cl stands for: because some have said I’m older than dirt and sometimes feeling like screaming over some of the absurdity I see around me these days.

With regards to your statement “They are not eyewitness accounts at all,” the evidence would show that they were. Likewise, later on we read how there were 500+ witnesses to whom Jesus appeared before ascending back into Heaven. So, again, until there’s evidence to prove this wrong, we should accept it as face-value even as we do others’ eyewitness accounts of historical events.