An open call for evidence

[Everybodyknows]

so it is impossible to form a belief without evidence.

But President Trump can! Perhaps he's supernatural

 

[Soyeong]

But President Trump can! Perhaps he's supernatural

I see that you are joking, but the reality is that something indicated to him that his beliefs are true, otherwise he would never have formed them in the first place.

 

[dcalling]

There is no evidence of the laws of thermodynamics being violated that I am aware of. The shorthand "order from disorder" is just that, a shorthand.

The only outstanding question I am aware of regards the state of the universe prior to the big bang. And, quite simply, we don't know.

That is why entropy has never been a convincing argument for me

Read up on quantum physics, which implies (from observations) that at quantum level, none of our current laws of physics applies and it is all statistics. Read up on how Einstein's seemly rational "pair of gloves" theory lost to Bohr on quantum coupling. All tell us that ...... the world is not what it seems to be.

 

[dhh712]

I'm an ex-Christian, now an atheist. To find the truth, I often revisit beliefs I have. Right now I am revisiting theism.

I'd love to hear the best evidence you have for God. How would I find out if he's real?

I'm really looking to listen, not argue. So while I may respond to tell you why the argument doesn't convince me (if it doesn't), please understand I'm just helping you understand my position so you can counter me.

I appreciate anything you have to offer.

I only have subjective evidence for you. That evidence is my changed life. I was an atheist turned Christian (about 4 years ago). For three years prior to my conversion, I was living as a transgender (female to male), injecting male hormones under the supervision of a physician. When God converted me, he mercifully took that delusion away from me and gave me contentment with the gender he created me as.

That was about the most immediate, significant change, but there were others. Formerly an avid curser who delighted in the creative use of profanity, I now really dislike hearing vulgar language, especially the use of the Lord's name in vain (when before one of my favourite curses was J-- F--in C---). I had also enjoyed such profane things as pornography as well as taboo subjects like incest as well as much worse things than that; my mind was rather twisted.

Then there was the process of sanctification which is more slow than not and also as much as you seem to move forward you realize you take several steps back as well. Yet someone revealed something quite profound to me today while at work: Prior to my conversion and even in the beginning years as a Christian, I was a very negative person, especially so at work. Today at work, one of my coworkers, just out of the blue was like, "You're a very positive person, Mrs. Dark Lord." Imagine my shock at hearing that! Three years ago, that would have been said as a sarcastic joke!!

 

[dcalling]

I'm an ex-Christian, now an atheist. To find the truth, I often revisit beliefs I have. Right now I am revisiting theism.

I'd love to hear the best evidence you have for God. How would I find out if he's real?

I'm really looking to listen, not argue. So while I may respond to tell you why the argument doesn't convince me (if it doesn't), please understand I'm just helping you understand my position so you can counter me.

I appreciate anything you have to offer.

I was just opposite of you, raised up atheist and has been a long time atheist. My first doubt of atheism come to be after I finally figured out how CPUs work, after finishing the book which talks from basic gates to clocks to ALUS and abruptly turned into assembly language, I keep asking why the author didn't tell how CPUs really worked, and finally figured out there is no magic in CPUs, it is just a stepping state machine. After that discovery something come to me, that we can't create real intelligence by ourselves, we can't create things that are self aware. The same though got deeper and deeper into me as I did computer games, studied AI, all is fake.

So if all that are fake and even we can't create systems that are self aware (we saw too much syfi and sometimes the movies make people thinking otherwise), how could nature do it?

 

[Everybodyknows]

There is no evidence of the laws of thermodynamics being violated that I am aware of. The shorthand "order from disorder" is just that, a shorthand.

The only outstanding question I am aware of regards the state of the universe prior to the big bang. And, quite simply, we don't know.

That is why entropy has never been a convincing argument for me

The way I look at it is that entropy is irrelevant before the big bang because time begins at the big bang. Entropy is all about a thermodynamic system moving from one state to another. Changing states requires spacetime to occur within.

 

[thesunisout]

I'm an ex-Christian, now an atheist. To find the truth, I often revisit beliefs I have. Right now I am revisiting theism.

I'd love to hear the best evidence you have for God. How would I find out if he's real?

I'm really looking to listen, not argue. So while I may respond to tell you why the argument doesn't convince me (if it doesn't), please understand I'm just helping you understand my position so you can counter me.

I appreciate anything you have to offer.

I used to be an agnostic, that is what I was by default growing up in a secular family. I didn't know much about Christianity, and I wasn't looking to become a Christian. That is really the last thing I ever thought I would be. However, one day God showed up in my life and made Himself real to me. I didn't immediately become a Christian after that, it was about 8 or 9 years later that I gave my life to Christ. Throughout, God was there gently guiding me on the path He wanted me to take. He made it very plain to me that I needed to give my life to Jesus Christ, and since I did that, He has made me into an entirely new person.

Revisiting theism is evidence of God working in your life. What are the reasons you are re-examining it? There has to be something there. Go from whatever revelation you have of God and ask God to make Himself real to you like He did to me.

I recommend you start reading the gospel of John, because it says this:

John 20:30-31

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name

It is specifically written so that you would believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Because the bible is a spiritual book, it is good to pray before each reading. I would pray something like this:

God, I am asking you to intervene in my life through my reading of the gospel of John. Please show me through it that Jesus is the Messiah.

 

[Everybodyknows]

So long as the religion interacts with the natural world, I think methodological naturalism can provide us evidence. The supernatural forces can never directly be tested, but they can be indirectly tested.

Hi, good thread!

I'm not convinced that supernatural causes can be tested in any way, even indirectly.

Of course with methodological naturalism, there will always be the response "we don't know the cause". But given a sufficient evidence, I would personally accept theism as a more likely explanation.

Doesn't methodological naturalism exclude the supernatural by its own definition? I'm thinking in the sense of methodological naturalism only being able to tell us either "we don't know the cause" our "there is a naturalistic cause". It's our discomfort with too many unknowns that lead us to supernatural explanations rather than naturalism itself.

For example, it would be very convincing if prayer had a non-zero chance of healing an amputee because we have a good understanding of human regeneration, and regrowing limbs is well outside of our ability

How would we test this by the scientific method though. Miracles are inconsistent one-offs (if one even believes in them). We would have to set up some kind of conditions where we could repeat miracles on demand, while controlling variables, to be able to say anything about their causes. And even then science could not lead us to a supernatural conclusion because it would be next to impossible to be sure that we have ruled out every possible natural explanation. So I'm afraid when it comes to the supernatural it seems unlikely that we are going to have any so called 'gold standard' evidence.

But the fine tuning argument for the universe isn't convincing because we have no clue as to the cause of the constants or to what degree they are constant. We only have our observation of the values

I agree that fine tuning is a poor argument. It starts with a huge assumption that the constants were set randomly with a roll of the cosmic dice. We just have no idea if that is the case. Maybe they couldn't be anything other than what they are or there could be some relationship between them all.

 

[Everybodyknows]

I never said anything about laws or such.

I said "things always tend toward disorder".
I can cite 1 milllion examples to support the case.
I can't think of one that denies the case.

Snowflake forming from a cloud.
Star forming from a gravitationally collapsing gas cloud, with planets in neat orbits.
You tidying your room.

I don't know anything about any "Bang"
except all bangs I know of are chaotic in
nature and don't create order.
Science is based on what one can reproduce.

What we can see leads towards less usable energy.
See: Heat death of the universe - Wikipedia
Trusting things we can't see is faith and religion.

Big bang is the lowest entropy state of the universe and heat death is the highest.

 

[John 1720]

So far I have only been in discussion with Christians, largely because of my personal background. I have investigated other faiths when I was de-converting and didn't find any evidence that made them more convincing that Christianity.

Hi ug33,
Any new response based on my last post? I'd like to further our discussion, rather than guess by shotgunning random apologetics. I think it is key to seek understanding as to what exactly caused you to lose your trust in Christ and deny Him as your Lord.
In Christ, Pat

 

[AlexDTX]

What are you saying, Jesus is separate from God, because that's what it sounds like. That would be pluralism. If someone believes in one God....Jesus would be included automatically.

What seems to be confusing you is the nature of Messiah. Jesus is the Word that became flesh. When Yahweh (the Existence or I Am) became a man that man, called Yah - Shua, that is, the Existence is Salvation, He became a human being. As a human being he has a created spirit, soul and body. That created spirit, soul and body was an exact expression of the eternal Word of Yahweh.

Computers make a limited but useful analogy. Computers have two memory systems: a hard drive and the Random Access Memory (RAM). All programs and documents are stored permanently on the hard drive. However when a person needs to use or modify a file, it is completely and perfectly copied onto the RAM. For all intents and purposes the user has the program or document. Once the changes are made it is saved again on the hard drive and erased from the RAM.

In a similar way, Jesus the man is like the RAM of God. The difference is that Jesus is also a living being with a created life that continues to exist forever. And, unlike computers, the hard drive was also in the RAM, that is, the fullness of the godhead dwelt in him bodily (Col. 2:9). Only on the cross did the Spirit depart from him (my God why have you forsaken me?), then returned after his resurrection. The Spirit of God left, not because He can not be in the presence of sin, which is patent nonsense for He is holy and can not be touched with sin. No, He left because it would have been impossible for the sins of the World to placed on the man Jesus so he could die for us.

Our salvation is based upon the man, not God. While he was the perfect expression of God in a man, nonetheless, Jesus has a free will and could have disobeyed God. He came close to it in the Garden of Gethsemane before facing the cross. But he did not. This is why Paul says by one man (Adam) all have sinned, but by one man (Jesus) all can be righteous (Rom. 5:17-19). This is why Jesus said that he is the door (John 10:1 -9) and that no man can come to the Father (Yahweh) but by him (John 14:6).

There is one God, but he is three persons in one just as we are 3 persons in one as spirit, soul and body. We do not see ourselves as three persons, but our spirit has a will of its own (the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak), our soul has a will that determines which will to act upon, and the body has a will (the lust of the flesh). Jesus as a man is a created will that is the face of the eternal existence.

Likewise, the name of God has changed. You can not call upon God by the name of God. God is His title, which means the Good. Nor can you call upon his former name, Yahweh, which I already said means the Existence or I Am. Only by the name of Jesus can you call upon God (Philip. 2:9-10), for that is his name. That name will change later according to Revelation 3:12.

There is one God and Jesus is one with God, for he said, I and the Father are one (John 10:30).

As a Christian for you to recommend someone to another "religion" (Christianity is not a religion but relationship with God) you are recommending them to trust in demons.

Our salvation is what makes us the children of God. Through Jesus alone, His Spirit will come into the heart of any who accepts the gift of life in Christ. This is what Jesus meant by our need to be "born again" (John 3:3). We become like Christ in that fullness of the Godhead dwells in us bodily (Col. 2:10), except we are not perfect expressions of him. That will come when we have glorified bodies. Nonetheless, in order to be born again, we must first die with Christ. What dies is the "old man" of our spirits, which then is transformed into a new creation that is joined to God. Our created souls and bodies remain the same, so we still and to labor to manifest our salvation.

 

[stanria]

Hi,
Are you just revisting theisic forms, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam. Judiasm, or are you expressly revisiting Christianity?

It will make a difference in how one responds. One response might be covering general evidence for God (Theism) or specifics evidences of the prophesied promised Messiah who was pre-existent with the Father, born of a virgin, lived out a sinless life of love and mercy, performed many miracles, suffered and died for our sins, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven where He sits at the right hand of power, and has promised that when the Gospel is successfully preached to all nations that He will return in glory to fulfill the establishment of a new man, not made after the image of fallen Adam but made after the image of Christ Himself. I do not know how deep into Christianity you went or why you rejected both the Christian worldview as well as theism. That would be an important consideration. It's better to have specific targets on which to base a discussion upon.
Before we get too immersed on what empirical points and logic you want to cover it might be better to get a better understanding of your personal background with respect to Christianity and Theism.

One suggestion in order to establish a baseline by which we might better engage in dialog might be to critique the talk and Q&A below.

Another suggestion might be to provide some background on what you generally found problematic in Christianity or more generally Theism.

After this we should be able to cut to the chase.
Sincerely, Pat

So glad to see Ravi Zacharias mentioned here. His apologetics are great and he speaks specifically to people who claim to be atheists.

 

[stanria]

I only have subjective evidence for you. That evidence is my changed life. I was an atheist turned Christian (about 4 years ago). For three years prior to my conversion, I was living as a transgender (female to male), injecting male hormones under the supervision of a physician. When God converted me, he mercifully took that delusion away from me and gave me contentment with the gender he created me as.

That was about the most immediate, significant change, but there were others. Formerly an avid curser who delighted in the creative use of profanity, I now really dislike hearing vulgar language, especially the use of the Lord's name in vain (when before one of my favourite curses was J-- F--in C---). I had also enjoyed such profane things as pornography as well as taboo subjects like incest as well as much worse things than that; my mind was rather twisted.

Then there was the process of sanctification which is more slow than not and also as much as you seem to move forward you realize you take several steps back as well. Yet someone revealed something quite profound to me today while at work: Prior to my conversion and even in the beginning years as a Christian, I was a very negative person, especially so at work. Today at work, one of my coworkers, just out of the blue was like, "You're a very positive person, Mrs. Dark Lord." Imagine my shock at hearing that! Three years ago, that would have been said as a sarcastic joke!!

I'm convinced I'd be ftm trans today if I were not saved. Jesus has helped me come to terms with my body and myself as it is. He made me, he loves me, and that is enough.

 

[aiki]

I'm an ex-Christian, now an atheist. To find the truth, I often revisit beliefs I have. Right now I am revisiting theism.

I'd love to hear the best evidence you have for God. How would I find out if he's real?

I'm really looking to listen, not argue. So while I may respond to tell you why the argument doesn't convince me (if it doesn't), please understand I'm just helping you understand my position so you can counter me.

I appreciate anything you have to offer.

The best evidence I have for God? Well, at the top of my list is my daily experience of Him. Wouldn't that be the case for any person I claimed existed and who I claimed to know intimately? God convicts me of sin, He illuminates my understanding of His truth, He strengthens me, provides for me, comforts and conforms me to His will and way. He does all these things nearly every day (some days I don't require as much convicting or comforting as on others).

Will my personal experience convince you? Will any evidence I might marshal for my theistic belief do so? Well, I long ago stopped trying to meet such a subjective standard. My goal is never to convince you of what I believe. That's God's job. There is no way mere evidence can overcome the various constraints, filters and barriers of personality, philosophy, culture, ego, and self-centeredness under which we all labor. Only God can penetrate through all this stuff and bring us to a genuine faith in Himself.

If you want evidence besides my personal experience of God, then I would direct you to:

www.reasonablefaith.org
www.str.org
www.rzim.org
www.reasons.org
www.crossexamined.org

Selah.

 

[stanria]

I highly recommend you look up Ravi Zacharias on YouTube and watch his Q&A videos. A lot of what he says is aimed at atheists.

 

[John 1720]

So glad to see Ravi Zacharias mentioned here. His apologetics are great and he speaks specifically to people who claim to be atheists.

Yes, I agree with you about Ravi. He is naturally gifted by God to address the doubts of skeptics. May the Lord continue to bless his ministry.

 

[Dosblade]

"I'd love to hear the best evidence you have for God. How would I find out if he's real? "

A song by "NF".. and not exact words lol..but this life is a slap in the face GOD IS REAL!. That being said... ug333.. ASK HIM. The key here is to ask with your heart. One has to mean it. This is one of the most WONDEFUL things about Him. JESUS IS REAL! yet.. I am so humbled and bow to my savior to all those that believe on Him and never seen Him never heard His voice or felt HIS ooh. sweet sweet presence. Yet.. they 100% believe.. WOW they are so BLESSED!

So ASK HIM. He WILL show you. He gave His life.. no other man did. You never asked for it. Never new HE was even real Yet He came as if YOU were the only one that would ever believe. See truth is.. He new you before this was all made and made a way so HE .. and wow.. crys so hard for no one knows how much HE loves this world. So everything was made just for YOU. One can be standing in Heaven with billions and look over to Him and.. what? He is looking just at you and no one else. And He lets you know.. YOU are the most important thing to Him. He wants to hold you in His arms and NEVER EVER EVER EVER LET you go. Yet how .. I do not know nor understand He does this for EVERY one of His Children and.. its WOW so awesome!... man..YOU were the reason He came.

But.. HE HAS to give you the right to choose. He can not will not force anyone. Not in any way. You have believe John 3:16. He is the ONLY way to the Father. In the end.. WE alone made this choice. I will say this.. as we look out in this world.. what we see and ALL happening as once.. has never happen before. NOW is NOT the time to play in sin. Truth.. you are not here by chance. He calls.. the door to your heart YOU have to open. Answer.. just believe.. He came to give you life.. sin ripped us from Him..not his choice. Man..He left heaven bacame man...took all the sin of past to furture. And it COST GOD something. We think He came died rose and back to the way it was. To DIE for the world and take all that sin and judgement from GOD.. COST GOD something.

WOW...He is SO REAL! Just take HIM at HIS word.. just believe and then WATCH what HE does in your life. DONT look at this though any other man on this world. Just take HIM at His word. He came and died for you.. asked for nothing from you. He gave it freely. Its a gift. Take it.. your choice

 

[Anti-stupidity]

I think whatever it is you believe, you have to buy something that is difficult to believe. With atheism, you have the miracles of getting something from nothing, getting life from non-life, getting order from chaos, and getting the immaterial from the material. Essentially, atheists use Naturalism of the Gaps reasoning where they don't know what caused it, but know that it wasn't God. While God of the Gaps reasoning is just as problematic, there are ways of concluding that God exists that is reasoning from what we do know rather than what we don't know.

Everything that begins to exist has a cause, so if the universe began to exist, then it has a cause. The cause of the universe would have to be immaterial because the cause of matter an energy can't be composed of matter and energy. So we can use logic like this to deduce what sort of attributes that it has, and if we find that the cause of the universe must have the attributes of the God of classical theism, then it is reasonable to refer to this cause as God. As much as it is difficult to believe in the miracle of God creating the universe, it is logical, straightforward, and much easier to believe than the miracle atheism that the universe exploded from nothing uncaused, especially when "nothing" has no properties, so it has no potential for a universe to explode from it.

Likewise, there are many good reasons why Christianity should have died out after the death of its leader, like all of the other Messianic cults had. Any few of those reasons would have been sufficient to prevent it from succeeding, but all of the reasons together makes it next to impossible for Christianity to have succeeded without the resurrection of their leader, so you believe something that is extremely difficult to believe either way regardless of whether or not you believe that Jesus was resurrected. As hard as it is to believe, his resurrection is what best accounts for the facts. I recommend this article:

The Impossible Faith

Well i'm sorry to say that your knowledge of what atheism is, what it entails, and what science says are ignorant at best and a straw man at worst. With atheism (What is Atheism? | American Atheists), you just don't believe in a god, you could still be an atheist and believe in an after life or believe in ghosts but it does not entail the abandonment of these beliefs or any others for that matter aside from a god one.

Nothing before the big bang is more of a misconception and a big one in line with this theory. In a nut shell, the big bang describes the evolution or expansion of the universe from a point smaller than a proton but it does not describe or even mention how the universe came to be. Nor does it imply that a singularity (Infinite temperature, finite mass, zero volume, infinite density) is on par with philosophical nothing apparently or even exists in reality. The most coherent answer ever given, is i don't know. The fact that a singularity arises in the math implies that there is a problem with general relativity and we need a quantum theory of gravity to describe what is going on at a point so close to t=0. Heck, one planck second after the big bang is the closest we can get before all of known laws of physics breaks down.

So if you are going to make straw man claims about atheists claiming the universe came from nothing, first prove that there was literally nothing before the big bang. If you can spot the contradiction in the statement above then you can get a cookie. Philosophical nothing cannot be shown to exist as it is the absence of existence and is thus such a paradoxical & ill-defined concept that it has no meaning or fluidity in our known reality.
Take these four statements below for example:

1. Something always existed in some form or another.
2. Something came from a previous nothing.
3. There was something then nothing.
4. There was always nothing.

These are some of the only possibilities that could come to mind and some seem illogical while others impossible. "4" is quickly disregarded due to the large body of scientific evidence to the contrary. "2" & "3" seem to make the assumption that something can come from nothing and vice versa, which seems to be paradoxical in light of their basic definitions. Even if you say that god created the universe from nothing, god was something, and thus the universe came from him. If the universe even did come from nothing, then it could be argued that what we thought was nothing, was really something with no detectable properties to indicate otherwise. Thus the only reasonable answer to give is that there always existed something, whether that be god, allah, yahweh, the flying spaghetti monster, or some other more plausible answer. My bet is on the last of the list, but remember to not ever make a god of gaps argument because of the question mark that is t=0.

Also, please stop being scientifically ignorant and look up abiogenesis, the second law of thermodynamics, and chaos theory in classical mechanics. Really the universe started out ordered and will continue to become disordered. Also, it isn't really naturalism of the gaps, more like, I found an explanation that gives testable, falsifiable results and agrees with all other previous data thus making it the most likely explanation. God is not this, you just want to assume him into existence. Lastly, where does science get the immaterial from the material?

Lastly, lastly, here is a good refutation of the Kalam cosmological argument upon which I assume you are using.

1(

)

2(

) Here is a fallacy built off of the argument called the Kalam cosmological argument fallacy.

This is the best I could do in short time so hope you find it challenging.

 

[Sola1517]

How would I find out if he's real?

I would start by seeing that the Scriptures shape our worldview instead of our worldview shaping the Scripture. What I don't mean is that you have to adopt the scientific beliefs of the Scriptural writers, they were people not divine. I am a theistic evolutionist and I believe that Scripture is correct about Jesus and God and the unseen but it's not a science or history textbook, and it shouldn't be treated as such.

I think if you start seeing spiritual things the way God presents them it'll become more clear.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Well i'm sorry to say that your knowledge of what atheism is, what it entails, and what science says are ignorant at best and a straw man at worst. With atheism (What is Atheism? | American Atheists), you just don't believe in a god, you could still be an atheist and believe in an after life or believe in ghosts but it does not entail the abandonment of these beliefs or any others for that matter aside from a god one.

Nothing before the big bang is more of a misconception and a big one in line with this theory. In a nut shell, the big bang describes the evolution or expansion of the universe from a point smaller than a proton but it does not describe or even mention how the universe came to be. Nor does it imply that a singularity (Infinite temperature, finite mass, zero volume, infinite density) is on par with philosophical nothing apparently or even exists in reality. The most coherent answer ever given, is i don't know. The fact that a singularity arises in the math implies that there is a problem with general relativity and we need a quantum theory of gravity to describe what is going on at a point so close to t=0. Heck, one planck second after the big bang is the closest we can get before all of known laws of physics breaks down.

So if you are going to make straw man claims about atheists claiming the universe came from nothing, first prove that there was literally nothing before the big bang. If you can spot the contradiction in the statement above then you can get a cookie. Philosophical nothing cannot be shown to exist as it is the absence of existence and is thus such a paradoxical & ill-defined concept that it has no meaning or fluidity in our known reality.
Take these four statements below for example:

1. Something always existed in some form or another.
2. Something came from a previous nothing.
3. There was something then nothing.
4. There was always nothing.

These are some of the only possibilities that could come to mind and some seem illogical while others impossible. "4" is quickly disregarded due to the large body of scientific evidence to the contrary. "2" & "3" seem to make the assumption that something can come from nothing and vice versa, which seems to be paradoxical in light of their basic definitions. Even if you say that god created the universe from nothing, god was something, and thus the universe came from him. If the universe even did come from nothing, then it could be argued that what we thought was nothing, was really something with no detectable properties to indicate otherwise. Thus the only reasonable answer to give is that there always existed something, whether that be god, allah, yahweh, the flying spaghetti monster, or some other more plausible answer. My bet is on the last of the list, but remember to not ever make a god of gaps argument because of the question mark that is t=0.

Also, please stop being scientifically ignorant and look up abiogenesis, the second law of thermodynamics, and chaos theory in classical mechanics. Really the universe started out ordered and will continue to become disordered. Also, it isn't really naturalism of the gaps, more like, I found an explanation that gives testable, falsifiable results and agrees with all other previous data thus making it the most likely explanation. God is not this, you just want to assume him into existence. Lastly, where does science get the immaterial from the material?

Lastly, lastly, here is a good refutation of the Kalam cosmological argument upon which I assume you are using.

1(

)

2(

) Here is a fallacy built off of the argument called the Kalam cosmological argument fallacy.

This is the best I could do in short time so hope you find it challenging.

Well, for someone who is against stupidity, you seem to have a short-change in understanding what the forum rules actually are.

2PhiloVoid