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The argument from popularity is a weak one. Even if everyone on the planet believed in gods, or the same god, it would not necessarily make them real.
My point is that it doesn't matter if one person's faculties aren't completely trustworthy, when we have an entire world full of people who can give us verification that our senses are, or are not, correct.
No evidence comes with a 100% confidence factor. No evidence comes without a model.
I've not asked you to cross check my faith.
No, I don't recall saying anything to this effect.
Yes, we agreed on this. You don't know what the evidence looks like.
Then it is just as weak for science as it is for faith.
Following that logic, science must be a complete mystery to you. How could we possibly have germ theory, atomic theory, semiconductor theory (for the computers we are now using) etc if that is the way scientific testing works?
Do you acknowledge that your god may be imaginary?
By what methods have you scrutinized them?
Honestly, given the tone this thread is starting to take on, I don't care if people start walking away thinking I'm a complete fool, and a complete failure in my explanation. It's just not worth it to me.
Only for your strawman of science.Then it is just as weak for science as it is for faith.
If a scientific test is run, I have to read the instruments with my unreliable eyes. I have to build the instruments with my unreliable hands. I have to remember that the results are repeatable with my unreliable mind ... or read a report about repeatable results - again with my unreliable eyes.
If I were the only person on earth who believed in God, of course I would doubt more than I do.
I am not advocating a position of extreme skepticism. I am advocating a basic don't-believe-everything-the-used-car-salesman-slash-preacher-tells-you level of skepticism.You're trying to twist what I said to the complete opposite conclusion I was pointing toward. At some point we trust what science is telling us even if we could take a position of extreme skepticism that says we shouldn't.
Indeed, but the purpose of scientific methodology is to minimize the influence of demonstrably unreliable perceptions, not to build on them.That trust in science has to include trusting our senses at least to some extent.
What kind of science can be conducted successfully in that manner?The trust I place in my senses when doing science is the same trust I place in my senses when I experience God.
I would say that your faith doesn't so much stand up to challenges, but more that you have described it in such a rarified manner so as to have your critics swinging at air.Just as all kinds of people are challenging science to see if it stands up, all kinds of people challenge my faith - and it stands up as well.
So your perceptions cannot be wrong, even with your senses as unreliable as they are?No more so than I'm willing to admit any person in my life might be imaginary.
Then back to Post #63. You trust that you have "met God". How would one discern such a meeting from that which was only imagined? Do you have nothing to offer?Answering that would get too personal.
Not a fool, as I think that beliefs in gods and the like is normal (but not necessary). It has an evolutionary basis.Honestly, given the tone this thread is starting to take on, I don't care if people start walking away thinking I'm a complete fool, and a complete failure in my explanation. It's just not worth it to me.
I would say that your faith doesn't so much stand up to challenges, but more that you have described it in such a rarified manner so as to have your critics swinging at air.
2. God is distinct, because God is a term of individual identity; it is an inherent linguistic consequence.
To answer your main questions:
1. God is distinguishable from Nothingness, because it is readily conceivable that one could encounter a pure vacuum that would not be identified as God.
3. God does not depend on anything for existence anymore than you depend on anything for your existence. While the sudden removal of all other matter would render your existence rather uncomfortable and would quickly end your life, it would not render you non existent. In order for an individual to cease to exist, that individual's existence must be assaulted.
To answer your main questions:
1. God is distinguishable from Nothingness, because it is readily conceivable that one could encounter a pure vacuum that would not be identified as God.
2. God is distinct, because God is a term of individual identity; it is an inherent linguistic consequence.
3. God does not depend on anything for existence anymore than you depend on anything for your existence. While the sudden removal of all other matter would render your existence rather uncomfortable and would quickly end your life, it would not render you non existent. In order for an individual to cease to exist, that individual's existence must be assaulted.
Then it follows that your statement "all kinds of people challenge my faith - and it stands up as well" is a falsity.
Then it follows that your statement "all kinds of people challenge my faith - and it stands up as well" is a falsity.
There is something curious here, so I wonder if you're saying this because you hope to take a victory lap or because you see something in this to discuss?
The latter, I hope. It is up to you. Your statement implies that you are here to have your ideas and beliefs challenged, as I am. That a challenge was successful should lead to more discussion, should it not? Are we not in a philosophy forum?
To me, this means that your God is indistinguishable from a delusion.
If someone claims to have experienced Brahma or leprechauns or unicorns or demons or Zeus or literally anything then their claim has just as much legitimacy as yours.
Are you okay with this type of epistemology?
(Emphasis mine)Variant basically asked me the same question, and essentially the answer is yes because I believe that's what everyone is doing whether they want to admit it or not.
So, I'm not trying to dispute their claim (which is what most people try to do). I'm trying to witness to what God does for me, and why I live by the Bible and not by their claims (Acts 1:8).
So all claims are equal then.
Do you believe in such a thing as objective reality?
I mean, either leprechauns exist or they don't. They can't both exist and not exist at the same time.
So if someone comes to you and tells you that they have experienced leprechauns, does that make you believe in leprechauns based on the personal testimony alone?
In the same way, either God exists or he does not. If there's no factual basis for it beyond (for lack of a better term) "delusions" in your own head, then in what way does God exist? Does God exist as part of an "objective reality"?
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