Objective morality, Evidence for God's existence

[Dre Khipov]

I believe the Bible contains the understanding of the word of God, but Jesus Christ Himself is the word of God made flesh in order to reconcile us back to God.

Yes, I understand that it's your belief, but that's not really what interests me. How do you go from what you've said below to "this book is God's wisdom and not something people made up as the fad religion of the day"? What method did you use, and is that method reliable when we apply it to any other claim?

I would make assumptions based on the most reasonable claims. No one that I've come into contact with is honestly claiming that leprechauns or cow-abducting aliens exist, therefore, I have no reason to honestly investigate the existence of those things.

Sure, but there are entire holidays based on leprechauns, and there countless people who claimed to be abducted by aliens on various continents.

What I'm asking... what method do you use to differentiate between claims that we have in the Bible and those of alien abductees? By which method do you paint one reasonable, and the other not? I'm assuming that you are applying the same standards of deriving viable beliefs when it comes to what you'd call reasonable claims, right?

Personal experience is all I have in which to form rational beliefs. I've experienced many people who have claimed that Jesus changed their lives and they went from drug addicts or inappropriate content addicts or doubting Thomas's or whatever to very reasonable and loving people who all of the sudden have a desire for God and not for worldly addictions or endless skepticism and this is evidence that there is something real that has effected them. Something real that changed their lives that they themselves were helpless to do on their own.

I get the above reason fairly often, but you yourself have to recognize that it's poor reasoning, at least acknowledge that there are problems on multiple levels of the claim.

1) Personal experience is simply not enough to form rational beliefs, because we are limited in our scope of awareness, and thus can make false correlation/causation conflations. That's why we developed a very strict procedures in our medical, judicial, and research methodology in order to avoid false correlation.

Here's where you run into problems with your claim above...

2) Just because people say that Jesus changed their lives doesn't mean that it's the reality. It's the same case with alien abductees. Just because they say that they have certain physiological symptoms of alien abduction, doesn't mean that aliens are responsible. Just because people claim that house is haunted because of noises, doesn't mean that ghosts are responsible.

There are people who recovered from drugs, depression, and certain dependency without religion, or from a totally different spectrum of religion and belief in different Gods or spirits.

The only common denominator in all of these cases is people doing that work

I really hope that you can recognize that. Everything else seems to be a projection as to which causes are responsible. Of course a religious believer would claim that Jesus is responsible... even when clearly they (or their physiology), or their doctors or therapists, are doing all of the work.

There are plenty of non-religious cases of psychological dependence where people continually blame unrelated causes for their failures, and they ascribe unrelated causes to their success. For example, there's a "law of attraction" movement out there who thinks that "the Universe" just hands out stuff if you really, really, really want it and keep focusing and asking universe for it. And then, when they get something they wanted, they ascribe that success to their methodology and the Universe granting their wish via the "law of attraction".

The point being, correlation alone is not the best way to determine the causal factors. If we went by your method of determining the veracity of claims we wouldn't have the modern science, we wouldn't have modern medicine, modern judicial system, and frankly we didn't until we got out of the "personal experience" mindset and adopted better methods.

Methods are important, especially when determining the veracity of any given claim.

Thus, I have to ask you again... which method do you use to differentiate between various claims and determine whether their causal relationships are true?

 

[Dre Khipov]

To single my question out more clearly - How do you know that it's Jesus that's responsible for the recovery of the drug addict? Which method did you use to determine that?

 

[Chriliman]

To single my question out more clearly - How do you know that it's Jesus that's responsible for the recovery of the drug addict? Which method did you use to determine that?

I don't quite fully understand what you mean when you say "Which method". The only method that I'm capable of using is my ability to reason and form rational beliefs based on my experiences in life. I can't somehow become fully objective and remove myself completely in order to understand the truth, but I can attempt to be as objective as possible in order to best determine what to believe.

If I decide to believe in Jesus because of personal experiences and evidences that I've come accross in life, then I would expect Him to begin changing me somehow to be more like Him, caring and loving and willing to serve and help others even if it means dying in order to save someone else or dying for the sake of the truth of God.(Persecuted to death)

 

[Dre Khipov]

I don't quite fully understand what you mean when you say "Which method". The only method that I'm capable of using is my ability to reason and form rational beliefs based on my experiences in life. I can't somehow become fully objective and remove myself completely in order to understand the truth, but I can attempt to be as objective as possible in order to best determine what to believe.

Reason is not a method, it's a generic tool. Reasoning can be false. A method would be a more generalized and precise process of reasoning that would lead us to any given conclusion.

For example, we have certain methods for research that outline certain guidelines in order to avoid making conclusions that are potentially or demonstrably false.

The best way I can explain the method would be comparing reason to a chase game. Method then would be any given strategy. In any situation, there are better chess game strategies that will likely lead you to victory. Simply getting to a chess board and beginning to move pieces around without any strategy will certainly guarantee loss.

The same thing with reasoning. It's not enough to just "reason". How you reason and what strategy (method) you use, and which guidelines you follow will matter whether your conclusion or claim is reliable.

First of all, not all beliefs and reasoning is rational. Rational belief that which is examined against certain principles of validity that we through our collective experience found to be reliable.

For example, back to the claim of alien abduction. If I make a claim that I have a bruise on my face which is caused by alien abduction, what method of reasoning would you use to rightly reject my claim, or in the very least put it on hold pending better evidence?

Well, first of all you've never seen any viable evidence of alien visitations that would pass the courtroom test for evidence. All we have are claims and inconclusive footage of UFOs, etc, most of which are demonstrably not extraterrestrial. Thus, claims of "hiding aliens" are not that different from non-existing aliens in terms of our personal experience.

It's the same thing with God/Jesus claims. I may claim that Jesus helped me to recover from drug addiction, but there is no Jesus to be observed anywhere, and there is no clearly-defined mechanism as to how Jesus does that and how Jesus change people. It simply seems that people simply fixate on an idea to adopt a certain discipline to get them through things.

It's the same exact thing with "the Secret crowd". All they do is fixate on things they really want, and those who get it end up telling everyone that it was "the secret" that got them what they wanted. But, most of them don't get it, just like a lot (if not most) people who call for Jesus to get them through drug addiction don't recover. Would that be evidence that religion is false?

 

[Dre Khipov]

To simplify the above,

Your present line of reasoning and method seems to be:

1) People claim that Jesus helped them to overcome certain things
2) I see that their lives changed
3) Therefore Jesus exists and God is real

I'm not quite sure as to how you jump from #2 to #3, since claims and certain correlation doesn't necessitate validity or causation. You claim to use reasoning, but I can very simply demonstrate to you that the above reasoning is not a reliable one.

Let's say that I pray to a shoe tomorrow that certain things will be granted to me, like the promotion I expect next day, or for recovery of someone or myself. If my wish is granted, does that mean that the shoe is responsible somehow?

You don't see that it's very similar to the reasoning that you are utilizing in this case?

I know praying to a shoe sounds ridiculous, but I could technically make a claim that the shoe is the incarnation of God on this Earth, and turn it into a religion.

But, the fact remains, if we utilize your flow of reasoning, we could very well believe in anything simply because it correlates with certain outcome.

 

[Davian]

...
The eye evolves in a way that allows it to access objective realities that existed before it evolved and will exist after it perishes. Few naturalists grounding morality in evolution understand a human faculty for perceiving objective morality to have evolved in this way. For them, moral realities came into existence with evolution and will perish with it because they are a by-product of it--and it is for precisely this reason that their morality is not truly objective in the sense intended by the OP. If they thought that light and color did not exist apart from the human eye, then your analogy would hold.

But light and colour do not exist apart from the human eye. "Light" is only a term for the part of the electromagnetic spectrum we can detect with our eyes, and "colour" is the subjective manner in which we describe our perception of different wavelengths, like our sense of touch tells us of smooth and rough surfaces.

The subjective nature of our perception can be demonstrated by images such as the one on this page:

http://www.curiouser.co.uk/illusions/lotto/colour.htm

As an aside, Elio is right when pointing to the contortion (and academic rarity) of denying premise (2),

I do not deny premise 2, I am waiting for Elio to show me an objective moral, and the methodology by which he made that determination.

and the effect is to reveal an atheistic apologetics that is no less insincere than the theistic apologetics you abhor. The atheists denying premise (2) probably do believe in at least a minimal objective morality, and yet deny this truth to repel what they see as a threat to their atheism.

Another Unsuccessful Test

• Davian
• Feb 27, 2016

If I tell you how you think, and I am wrong, am I still wrong?

 

[Davian]

To simplify the above,

Your present line of reasoning and method seems to be:

1) People claim that Jesus helped them to overcome certain things
2) I see that their lives changed
3) Therefore Jesus exists and God is real

I'm not quite sure as to how you jump from #2 to #3, since claims and certain correlation doesn't necessitate validity or causation. You claim to use reasoning, but I can very simply demonstrate to you that the above reasoning is not a reliable one.

Let's say that I pray to a shoe tomorrow that certain things will be granted to me, like the promotion I expect next day, or for recovery of someone or myself. If my wish is granted, does that mean that the shoe is responsible somehow?

You don't see that it's very similar to the reasoning that you are utilizing in this case?

I know praying to a shoe sounds ridiculous, but I could technically make a claim that the shoe is the incarnation of God on this Earth, and turn it into a religion.

But, the fact remains, if we utilize your flow of reasoning, we could very well believe in anything simply because it correlates with certain outcome.

It seems to me that Chriliman's line of reasoning and methodology is more like:

1) I believe Jesus exists and God is real;
2) I look only to things that confirm my beliefs;
3) Therefore Jesus exists and God is real.

 

[Chriliman]

To simplify the above,

Your present line of reasoning and method seems to be:

1) People claim that Jesus helped them to overcome certain things
2) I see that their lives changed
3) Therefore Jesus exists and God is real

I'm not quite sure as to how you jump from #2 to #3, since claims and certain correlation doesn't necessitate validity or causation. You claim to use reasoning, but I can very simply demonstrate to you that the above reasoning is not a reliable one.

Let's say that I pray to a shoe tomorrow that certain things will be granted to me, like the promotion I expect next day, or for recovery of someone or myself. If my wish is granted, does that mean that the shoe is responsible somehow?

You don't see that it's very similar to the reasoning that you are utilizing in this case?

I know praying to a shoe sounds ridiculous, but I could technically make a claim that the shoe is the incarnation of God on this Earth, and turn it into a religion.

But, the fact remains, if we utilize your flow of reasoning, we could very well believe in anything simply because it correlates with certain outcome.

Seeing life transformation of people is just one of many reasons why I believe Jesus is the Son of God.

I didn't choose one method of reasoning and then base my beliefs off that one method. There are many reasons and many methods that I've used that have resulted in my beliefs today, including personal experiences that I cannot deny were spiritual in nature.

When we reach the age of reason, we experiment with many different methods of reasoning that, in my case, lead to the simplest truth in which to believe in my life. If evidence arises that proves me wrong, then I'll gladly admit error, but until then I'll believe what's currently true and that is that I'm saved by Jesus and will live forever after my mortal body passes away.

You may not have reached that simple truth yet, because you're more skeptical than I am and there is nothing wrong with that. Skepticism helps find the truth, but once you find it, there is no reason to be skeptical of that truth any longer. This does not mean you shouldn't be skeptical of other truth claims that offer new information that build on the previous truth.

Science claims to have the best method of figuring out true things and I agree science can figure out many true things, but my goal is finding and following truth.

To summarize, I prefer a simplified form of reasoning where the purpose is simply to find the truth and not rely on what other people are telling me is true. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Dre Khipov]

To summarize, I prefer a simplified form of reasoning where the purpose is simply to find the truth and not rely on what other people are telling me is true. There's nothing wrong with that.

And how exactly can you tell whether something is true or not with your simplified form of reasoning? What's the differentiating factor?

 

[Chriliman]

And how exactly can you tell whether something is true or not with your simplified form of reasoning? What's the differentiating factor?

It's just the fact that I trust there is truth. This is what I call faith.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Seeing life transformation of people is just one of many reasons why I believe Jesus is the Son of God.

That strikes me as setting the bar rather low. There need be nothing supernatural about people changing, even if this happens rarely.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Dre Khipov]

It's just the fact that I trust there is truth. This is what I call faith.

When we begin make up other set of semantics and meaning, it becomes very confusing as to what exactly you are trying to communicate, even in the short reply you are making above.

Fact generally means something we can verify. Your thought process can't be a fact , since we can't really verify what's in your head.

Truth or "being true" is a quality, or property of a model concept in our mind having some overlap with reality. As an analogy, I could ask you to draw a picture of my dog. There's then a relative scale of "concept match" based on how you drew it and what my dog actually looks like. If you draw a stick figure dog, there may be some overlap, but it would be like any dog out there. If you include some distinctive features, you'd get closer to the actual reality of the way my dog looks like.

In either case, you wouldn't just draw some random doodle and say "I trust in the truth that there are dogs like that out there". You'd have to justify the veracity of that doodle at least to some matching property of reality.

The question is again, how do you go about matching the idea of God in your head, and the reality of God out there that you can't see to begin with? Likewise, how do you get to call that "the truth"? Should you qualify it as a claim, or belief unless you can present some evidence of that truth in our reality?

If I claim that I have a Ferrari, the fact that I have some Ferrari gear on me is simply not evidence enough. You may believe my claim, but in case of an actual financial transaction I think you'd like to see a car, right? So, why would you invest in God concept based on "external memorabilia" that you see as a claim?

Why would anyone hide the Ferrari prior to transaction, unless there is a real problem with the car, or a claim to car ownership?

 

[Chriliman]

When we begin make up other set of semantics and meaning, it becomes very confusing as to what exactly you are trying to communicate, even in the short reply you are making above.

Fact generally means something we can verify. Your thought process can't be a fact , since we can't really verify what's in your head.

Truth or "being true" is a quality, or property of a model concept in our mind having some overlap with reality. As an analogy, I could ask you to draw a picture of my dog. There's then a relative scale of "concept match" based on how you drew it and what my dog actually looks like. If you draw a stick figure dog, there may be some overlap, but it would be like any dog out there. If you include some distinctive features, you'd get closer to the actual reality of the way my dog looks like.

In either case, you wouldn't just draw some random doodle and say "I trust in the truth that there are dogs like that out there". You'd have to justify the veracity of that doodle at least to some matching property of reality.

The question is again, how do you go about matching the idea of God in your head, and the reality of God out there that you can't see to begin with? Likewise, how do you get to call that "the truth"? Should you qualify it as a claim, or belief unless you can present some evidence of that truth in our reality?

If I claim that I have a Ferrari, the fact that I have some Ferrari gear on me is simply not evidence enough. You may believe my claim, but in case of an actual financial transaction I think you'd like to see a car, right? So, why would you invest in God concept based on "external memorabilia" that you see as a claim?

Why would anyone hide the Ferrari prior to transaction, unless there is a real problem with the car, or a claim to car ownership?

I'm sure you can understand that faith is trusting that there is truth that can clear up the contradictory and confusing information being thrown at us everyday.

This is a simple understanding and that's the point.

 

[Locutus]

I'm sure you can understand that faith is trusting that there is truth that can clear up the contradictory and confusing information being thrown at us everyday.

This is a simple understanding and that's the point.

So the point is to simplify and ease your progress through life - absolve you of the responsibility of thinking through the many and various sets of data coming at you?

Are you aware this starts to look like a red pill / blue pill scenario?

 

[Chriliman]

So the point is to simplify and ease your progress through life - absolve you of the responsibility of thinking through the many and various sets of data coming at you?

Are you aware this starts to look like a red pill / blue pill scenario?

I prefer to think of it as pulling my head out of the confusing data and looking at the big picture and reevaluating foundational truths that I've been lead to believe. I'm not afraid to do this since I trust there is truth in which I can rely on.

 

[Davian]

I prefer to think of it as pulling my head out of the confusing data and looking at the big picture and reevaluating foundational truths that I've been lead to believe. I'm not afraid to do this since I trust there is truth in which I can rely on.

And you base that trust on that trust?