Peanut Gallery for "What Is Evidence / How Do We Know What Is Real?"

[walterpthefirst]

Good post, Hierophant.

 

This pinned article might be of interest.  

 

Especially when it comes aik's testimony about feelings and convictions being valid indicators of what is real.

 

These indicators are meaningful to him, but because they are exclusively private and personal, they cannot be Relevant to anyone else.

 

My personal feelings and convictions are only relevant to me.

 

They cannot be relevant to anyone else because nobody else can directly experience them or share in them.

 

So, aik's personal testimony about feelings and convictions fails the test of Relevance.

 

His feelings and convictions are irrelevant to us, no matter how much importance he puts on them. 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

2 hours ago, Hierophant said:

@aik brought up the subject of what constitutes evidence, and I wanted to start a new thread about this topic to avoid it getting lost within the discussion where it was brought up. According to @aik , he stated that feelings, convictions, or a gut instinct is a valid indicator of what is real. For example, and if I understand him correctly, @aik believes that God is real, and that Christianity is true, because there in his mind and heart, he perceives it to be true. Aik also stated that members here are claiming only science can give us insight and evidence for what is real. I do not believe anyone said this, but I do not think it is a bad inference.

 

The reason why a lot of members here trust in science, or better stated, the scientific method is because it provides an objective means by which we humans can understand our reality. The scientific method is designed as to be self-correcting, i.e., if new evidence is provided that overturns a previously held belief, then beliefs change to accommodate the new data.

 

Now, science is limited in the aspect that is can only investigate our reality, which is called methodological naturalism. This principle is closely related to naturalism, but it is not the same. Naturalism is a philosophy stating only natural forces shape our reality, and omits the possibility of the supernatural. Methodological naturalism does not state that. What methodological naturalism does mean is that humans are only capable of studying the natural world, as we observe it. Science does not have the means or methods to investigate the supernatural, so even if the supernatural realm existed, science could not say anything about it. It is beyond our capability to investigate.

 

I do not want to misrepresent Aik's position, so if I am in error, please let me know, but Aik provided an example I found to be a false analogy. Aik stated that if science is the only means of knowing, then humans should submit themselves to DNS testing to see if their parents, are truly their parents. I am not entirely sure what Aik was driving at, but I believe he was stating that we (people in general) take things on faith as evidence, e.g., we assume those who claim to be our parents are indeed our parents. I would agree that if we really wanted to know, we could use DNA sampling to make sure our parents are indeed our parents. That would be the ultimate evidence to demonstrate such a thing - which merely validates the scientific method opposed to diminishing it.

 

Making some assumptions, people, by and large, do not do this because they do not really feel they need to. Historically speaking, societies are not really known to be child swapping, then lying to the children stating they are really their parents. We know from experience that most parents, are indeed the true parents of children....it does not need to be taken on faith, it is simply the most likely scenario. If someone was unsure of their parentage, perhaps they look nothing like their parents based on ethnicity, morphology, or some other reason that introduces doubt, then they could submit to a DNA test to make sure.

 

Aik stated that our belief our parents are probably our parents are the same as him knowing that God is his father. I simply find that to be false, as stated before. Aik is equivocating humans growing up generally believing those who claim to be their parents as the same type of belief as believing Yahweh is a believer's heavenly father. The primary discrepancy is that we could get a DNA test to make sure, we have no such method to find out if God is our heavenly father.

 

When we rely on feelings or convictions to determine what is true, we might be right sometimes, but it is not a guarantee. Consider the gambler who has a feeling that they are just a couple spins away from hitting the jackpot, then find themselves penniless. The emotions and convictions they are feeling is the same as those believers who think they have found out the truth of the supernatural. I know, I have felt both. I have felt certain something was meant to be, or hope that something would happen, only to be left utterly disappointed. When I was a Christian, I was in the camp of WLC, I was convicted Christianity was true and thought the Holy Spirit was internally verifying this conviction.

 

Coming to conclusions based on faith, emotions, or convictions is inherently unsound. It is not an objective method for discovering what is true about our reality, and that extends to the supernatural. Here is a great example, from Christians themselves. Sir Isaac Newton and Sye Ten Bruggencate both claimed that by special revelation, they new the true nature of Jesus. Newton believed that Jesus was not divine, while Sye Ten did. Both stated they came to the respective conclusions by reading the Bible and special revelation from God. And there is the rub, we have two committed, devout Christians claiming to employ the same method and the same sources, but ultimately coming to different conclusions. Right there, that is my problem. This is not an isolated event, this problem has existed throughout the entirety of Christianity. There are thousands of denominations, all convinced of their particular beliefs based on their interpretation of the Bible, and the claim that the Holy Spirit is illuminating knowledge.

 

Another example is when I was reading different material from various Christian blogs and came across two authors who were discussing a certain theological topic. I forget what the topic was, but it just happened to be the same one, maybe Calvinism, or forgiveness, I am not sure -- but both blogs were discussing the exact same topic. Anyways, both authors of their blogs stated we should use scripture to interpret scripture. In their arguments, these authors came to polar opposite conclusions based on their method of using scripture to interpret scripture, which rules out this being a valid method of determining what the Bible is trying to state, let alone what is real.

 

There is a show called Under the Banner of Heaven I highly recommend. For me, it brought the issue of special revelation to the forefront. In the show, these Mormon brothers get into fundamentalism and begin to think they are receiving special revelations from God, same as was claimed by Joseph Smith. The show highlights that these brothers are just having ad hoc revelations they believe are coming from God, but are just their own personal wants. Others in the show bend the knee because there is no way to validate what they are claiming is coming from God, and they surely do not want to offend God, so they go with it. It points out the flaws with attempting to discover what is real by relying on our convictions, it does not work.

 

Elsewhere, I have stated that I am only willing to believe what the evidence bears out, and that is because I want to know what is real, not what I want or hope to be real. When it comes to belief in any religion, I do not believe in just having faith. It is too easy to believe anything and everything. Nothing, no matter how ridiculous is on the table. I do not trust in emotions or convictions for determining what is true, I have seen those methods fail all the time. I am an agnostic atheist because I do not know of any possible method or test to determine if a God exists. Based on the evidence provided, I find it unlikely. I would have to have direct access to this God to know if he was even real. All philosophical musings claiming a God exists are pithy, and easily demonstrated to be without merit. If anyone was to convince me a God existed, I would need to see a ground up approach. What I mean by that is lets see the tangible, objective evidence for the claim. If it exists, I will absolutely change my mind. I do not accept making a leap of faith, then attempting to buttress that faith with anything and everything that suits the bias. It is intellectually dishonest.

This is a great explanation of how emotions and feelings do not mean anything except to the one feeling them. 

 

I tried to explain to @aik that I and many people here had most likely already felt something similar to what he is feeling for his God. I can really only speak for myself. But at the peak of my zeal I would dream about scriptures I had read and thought God was talking to me. To the point I felt he was calling me to preach. Which was a very real and compelling feeling. It was almost as strong as the compulsion to get "saved". Which is what I call a salvation experience now. 

 

I know now it was all in my head. The feeling of guilt for something I had never done. Or for that matter. Something no one did. There was no tree of knowledge of good and evil, there was no tree of life, and Adam/Eve were mythological characters. There is no hell to fear. There is no heaven to covet. Jesus didn't die for me. And if some guy named Jesus did think he was dying for everyone. Well thats on him. Wasn't my fault. 

 

Emotions are tricky and unpredictable. So this makes them completely unreliable. Emotions do not have to be based on truth. For instance. How many times have you been lied to and had an emotional reaction? That reaction was based on a lie. 

 

DB

[TABA]

I am setting up this Peanut Gallery so users other than @aik and @Hierophant can chime in on the topic "What Is Evidence / How Do We Know What Is Real?".  

[sdelsolray]

On 11/29/2022 at 11:24 AM, DarkBishop said:

This is a great explanation of how emotions and feelings do not mean anything except to the one feeling them. 

... 

 

DB

 

I observe that the emotions of one person may mean something to another person.  As an example, empathy is the ability to share and understand others' emotions.

 

That is not to say that the content of the emotion, or the truth of the matter asserted by or existing within the emotion, is empirical evidence.  Still, it is clear that the emotion being presented by someone is evidence that the person is experiencing that emotion, unless, of course, that person is pretending, lying or being manipulative.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

It seems that @aik is starting to enjoy all this. Maybe he'll hang around for awhile. And I'm impressed with the mostly positive attitude he has tried to keep. I respect him for that. We've all been bombarding him since he arrived. Most Christians that come here would atleast be cursing and hurling insults at everyone by now. 

 

Thanks for being a good sport AIK.

 

DB

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

23 minutes ago, sdelsolray said:

 

I observe that the emotions of one person may mean something to another person.  As an example, empathy is the ability to share and understand others' emotions.

 

That is not to say that the content of the emotion, or the truth of the matter asserted by or existing within the emotion, is empirical evidence.  Still, it is clear that the emotion being presented by someone is evidence that the person is experiencing that emotion, unless, of course, that person is pretending or lying.

Thats true. And even I can relate to AIKs emotional evidence. But that isn't proof of anything. Its only emotion. 

 

Its nice to see you again by the way how have you been? 

 

DB

[sdelsolray]

3 hours ago, DarkBishop said:

Thats true. And even I can relate to AIKs emotional evidence. But that isn't proof of anything. Its only emotion. 

 

Its nice to see you again by the way how have you been? 

 

DB

 

Yes, what it can be evidence for is rather limited, i.e., that the person has experienced the particular emotion.

I have been busy and content with several changes in the past year.  I'm retiring the end of this year, we sold our house a couple of months ago and took a newer one then.  Visited one son's family and grandchildren in Chicago and one daughter's family and grandchildren in Hawaii.  I've been spending much more time with music and reading.  We are traveling to New Zealand and Australia for about one month in a few months.

[walterpthefirst]

 

 

Aik was quite emphatic that he had NO objective evidence to give us to support his claims.  But, what I can't understand about that declaration is simply this.

 

If something were objectively true then there would be objective evidence for this truth, regardless of any belief for or against it.

 

Since aik seems to think that his truth is objectively true, why can't he supply any objective evidence for it?  One possible answer is that his god has set things up in such a way that humans must first believe without objective evidence before they receive any objective evidence.  This effectively what he said to the Prof.

 

Faith leads to the evidence, or faith bears evidence. or faith shows evidence.

 

This puzzles me.  Faith is used when there is an absence of evidence, as described in Hebrews 11.  So, if no objective evidence exists for something, how can faith cause this evidence to 'pop' into existence?  If faith changes one's mind, then said objective evidence still hasn't 'popped' into existence.  All that has changed is what is inside your head.  External reality hasn't changed one bit.  There is still an absence of evidence, but now you believe that there isn't.

 

In Hebrews 11 Paul lists the names of people in the bible who believed in things without evidence.  Then he goes on to list the evidence that was given to these people, after they believed without said evidence.  Noah had no evidence of a forthcoming flood other than god's warning to him.  But, because he believed god he and his family were the only people saved from the flood.  Their salvation was Noah's objective evidence, given to him by god after Noah believed without evidence.

 

But as far as I can see, all of the people listed in Hebrews 11 had their faith confirmed by supernatural means after they first believed without evidence.  And this troubles me greatly.  Because as I mentioned above -  if something is objectively true than there would be objective evidence for it, regardless of belief or faith.  Not supernatural evidence, but natural and real and physical objective evidence. 

 

Evidence that should be visible and understandable by anyone, without the need of faith or belief to see it. 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sdelsolray]

32 minutes ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

 

Aik was quite emphatic that he had NO objective evidence to give us to support his claims.  But, what I can't understand about that declaration is simply this.

 

If something were objectively true then there would be objective evidence for this truth, regardless of any belief for or against it.

 

Since aik seems to think that his truth is objectively true, why can't he supply any objective evidence for it?  One possible answer is that his god has set things up in such a way that humans must first believe without objective evidence before they receive any objective evidence.  This effectively what he said to the Prof.

 

Faith leads to the evidence, or faith bears evidence. or faith shows evidence.

 

This puzzles me.  Faith is used when there is an absence of evidence, as described in Hebrews 11.  So, if no objective evidence exists for something, how can faith cause this evidence to 'pop' into existence?  If faith changes one's mind, then said objective evidence still hasn't 'popped' into existence.  All that has changed is what is inside your head.  External reality hasn't changed one bit.  There is still an absence of evidence, but now you believe that there isn't.

 

In Hebrews 11 Paul lists the names of people in the bible who believed in things without evidence.  Then he goes on to list the evidence that was given to these people, after they believed without said evidence.  Noah had no evidence of a forthcoming flood other than god's warning to him.  But, because he believed god he and his family were the only people saved from the flood.  Their salvation was Noah's objective evidence, given to him by god after Noah believed without evidence.

 

But as far as I can see, all of the people listed in Hebrews 11 had their faith confirmed by supernatural means after they first believed without evidence.  And this troubles me greatly.  Because as I mentioned above -  if something is objectively true than there would be objective evidence for it, regardless of belief or faith.  Not supernatural evidence, but natural and real and physical objective evidence. 

 

Evidence that should be visible and understandable by anyone, without the need of faith or belief to see it. 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are describing examples of indoctrination and brainwashing.

[walterpthefirst]

7 hours ago, sdelsolray said:

 

You are describing examples of indoctrination and brainwashing.

 

Like the Shia Imam accompanying a coachload of pilgrims going to a holy place in Karbala?

 

He told his fellow passengers that if Sunni Muslims were to shoot at the coach they should make the sign of the five holy names of Allah on their coach windows and this would stop the bullets.

 

 

[Joshpantera]

AiK: "The best evidence I ever had from God is Jesus Christ, his birth, his life, his crucifixion, his resurrection, his manifestation to apostles, his Holy Spirit to the church and believers. It is all about Jesus Christ. If we want to make it narrow, the core is crucifixion and ressurrection. This is the best evidence that mankind ever had."

 

1) Jesus Christ = speculative as one fixed historical person. Evidence points to a collage of many different personalities presented as the one avatar in the myths. 

2) Apostles = no contemporary evidence confirms their existences. More mythology. 

3) Holy Spirit = supernatural entity which arose as an evolved idea over time, after having not existed previous to its own obvious man-made addition to the myths. 

 

So, this is it! Mythology that arose into the historical record a century after the events of the supposed timeline (two centuries if Yehsua Ben Pantera was the original base model for the myths). 

 

This is the best evidence that a supernatural, all-present, all-knowing, all-powerful, conscious, living, and intelligent being can manage to provide humanity to verify its existence?????

 

I guess hard, unmistakable evidence is more than what an all-everything God is capable of doing?

 

Or the all-everything god purposely left no hard, settling evidence, on purpose?

 

But if the god left no evidence on purpose, as part of the plan, then why are we right now seeing a debate about the evidence? Wouldn't it be contrary to the god's plan for his believers to take up arguing for hard evidence if hard evidence is NOT what the all-everything god planned? Making the believer arguing evidence the opposite, or opposed to the will of the god? 

 

 

 

[Shinzon]

On 12/1/2022 at 7:24 PM, walterpthefirst said:

 

Evidence that should be visible and understandable by anyone

 

Reminds me of the time I asked a fundementalist family member of mine, what he thought of the experiences of muslims on the haji to mecca and he said that they were experiencing god to the best of their current abilities.

 

Seems like once you get into this territory everything turns into some wierd mix of circular reasoning and goal post shifts till they reach the conclusion they already want.

[TABA]

12 minutes ago, Shinzon said:

Seems like once you get into this territory everything turns into some wierd mix of circular reasoning and goal post shifts till they reach the conclusion they already want.

Bingo!! 

[older]

Just found this on the net, unknown source:

"We are born atheists, and we remain so until someone lies to us."

[◊ Weezer ◊]

2 hours ago, older said:

Just found this on the net, unknown source:

"We are born atheists, and we remain so until someone lies to us."

 

I had never thought of it like that.  Buuut ----- actually we wouldn't be atheists.  There would be no knowledge or belief in either direction without information on the subjects.  The belief is conditioned/programmed into us.

[Astreja]

6 hours ago, aik said:

And please, answer this question. For example there is a miracle done by Jesus, multiplying of bread, and this miracle is mentioned in all four gospels. It means that at least four people witness about it. Do you believe it is true? 

 

No, I do not.  It is trivially easy to make up a fictional "miracle" story, and easy to copy someone else's fictional story.  I do not believe that any bread was multiplied.

[Astreja]

1 hour ago, aik said:

My faith is not based on what you call objective evidence...

 

...Are you ready to enter with me into examination of scientific issues for life? 

 

These are irreconcilable ideas.  Science requires observation, testing, retesting and the potential for falsifying a hypothesis.  Faith is of no use in this process.

[walterpthefirst]

Perhaps it would useful for aik to tell us how he thinks science works?

 

And what the relationship of scientific inquiry is to objective evidence?

 

 

This is not a message from me to aik, btw.

 

These are merely suggestions for how this thread might proceed.

 

 

Walter.

[Shinzon]

5 hours ago, Astreja said:

 

No, I do not.  It is trivially easy to make up a fictional "miracle" story, and easy to copy someone else's fictional story.  I do not believe that any bread was multiplied.

Piggybacking off of that point(in case by some chance a christian reads this)....even if it were true that there was a guy name Jesus who did feed a bunch of people and that story snowballed into what because of he gospels....any attempt to claim factual accuracy based off reporting becomes a sharpshooter fallacy.  This is  cause even if there is a grain of truth there....it doesn't prove the truth of any sort of divinity claims or any other rlated parts of the text..  It just shows that some sort of narrative was told for a philosophical reason.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

2 hours ago, Shinzon said:

 

 becomes a sharpshooter fallacy.  This is  cause even if there is a grain of truth there....it doesn't prove the truth of any sort of divinity claims 

 

I may be wrong, but I understand some of the Gnostic gospels that were left out of the Bible indicated he was not divine.

[Shinzon]

12 minutes ago, Weezer said:

I may be wrong, but I understand some of the Gnostic gospels that were left out of the Bible indicated he was not divine.

You would know more then me since my understanding of the gnostic gospels is pretty poor.

 

  Framing in regards to my previous comment was with the typical Christian idea of Jesus in mind and there attempts to establish that.

 

Also I have always been partial to the ehrman or Allison view of Jesus as a failed end times prophet then became seen as God.   Seems to explain the development of Christian ideas from Mark to John the best.   But again...I'm not the most knowledgeable of knowledgeable people on the subject.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

1 hour ago, Shinzon said:

 

Also I have always been partial to the ehrman or Allison view of Jesus as a failed end times prophet then became seen as God.   Seems to explain the development of Christian ideas from Mark to John the best.  

 

It has been about 20 years since I looked at the Gnostic gospels.  I decided he possibly existed and if he grew up being told god was his father, and he was to be a savior, he may have believed it, and his teaching had an eastern flavor, basically being a modified golden rule.  But even if he existed, I think the story got glamorized.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

9 hours ago, Astreja said:

 

No, I do not.  It is trivially easy to make up a fictional "miracle" story, and easy to copy someone else's fictional story.  I do not believe that any bread was multiplied.

 

Perhaps it was divided into tiny bits??  

[Astreja]

2 hours ago, Weezer said:

 

Perhaps it was divided into tiny bits??  

 

Maybe Jesus decided not to give the table crumbs to the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:27 and recycled them as day-olds. 

[freshstart]

On 12/1/2022 at 3:06 PM, sdelsolray said:

I observe that the emotions of one person may mean something to another person.  As an example, empathy is the ability to share and understand others' emotions.

 

That is not to say that the content of the emotion, or the truth of the matter asserted by or existing within the emotion, is empirical evidence.  Still, it is clear that the emotion being presented by someone is evidence that the person is experiencing that emotion, unless, of course, that person is pretending, lying or being manipulative.

Yes and the problem is we, as humans, have a communal understanding and sometimes a communal experience when it comes to emotions, even though there is no way to scientifically prove that any emotion actually "exists." Emotions are construct, they are not matter or energy or anything we can measure, except by a person's perceived experience. Yet we all tend to agree that love, hate, etc are "real." People are rarely asked to prove that they love whatever it is they love. We just take that personal experience at face value (most of the time). It is the perception, interpretation, and source of those emotions that is debatable.

I, for example, cannot fathom the love of sports. To me it is just a bunch of people on a field or court (or whatever) batting, kicking, hitting or throwing a ball around. How and why is it that ball games generate what seems to be a spiritual experience for certain fans? Why do fans experience shared communal emotions over a game?

Honestly we could ask this about any emotion toward anything and probably come up with an evolutionary answer. And because a belief in a higher power is such a common and communal human experience, there is likely an evolutionary answer for that too.