Why I believe in God

Nice OP quite clear and coherent.

Humans are wired to want to know what is ultimately true, to desire meaning, beauty, and other things that are not important to survival and reproduction. It's to be expected that God would design these qualities, but if they evolved naturally that is another unlikely coincidence.

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BUT Are you saying truth is useless?

Percivale said:

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One hypothesis, God, explains several diverse phenomena that require multiple hypotheses to explain without God, and which don't do as well. Thus God is the most probable explanation for the universe, life, and the human psychology, and it is more rational to be a theist than an atheist.

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How do we test this hypothesis?

Percivale said:

.....One hypothesis, God, explains several diverse phenomena that require multiple hypotheses to explain without God....

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If theres value to diverse explanatory-power, then why not have God be the explanation for EVERY phenomenon?

Percivale said:

Here's the evidence I find most convincing that God exists.

Our universe had a beginning. The Big Bang is accepted by nearly all scientists.
If the universe had a beginning, either there is an eternal multiverse or succession of universes, or God created it.

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I actually think that the idea that there is some sort of "uncaused cause" or "necessary being" is the most likely explanation, but I think that conflating the uncaused cause with God is a mistake unless you do one of two things. Either you 1) define the word God to simply mean "the uncaused cause," full stop (meaning that even if the uncaused cause was just something fundamental to subatomic particles or something along those lines, that would be "God," even though it lacks feature like personhood or omnipotence), or 2) you think that the the uncaused cause must have the common features attributed to God, such as personhood, omnipotence, omniscience, etc.

If you choose Option 1, you would have to accept the possibility of something turning out to be "God" even if that thing lacks any of the other traditional divine attributes of the figures worshipped in any major religion. If you chose Option 2, you would need something more than a cosmological argument to show that the traditional God attributes are neccessary attributes of the uncaused cause.

Percivale said:

Life arising from nonlife is totally unobserved, so not more probable than God.

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Unembodied minds are also totally unobserved (and, to me, barely coherent as a concept), so a personal, omniscient uncaused cause is not more probable than a nonpersonal, limited first cause (something most religions would not recognize as a "God").

Percivale said:

Humans are wired to want to know what is ultimately true, to desire meaning, beauty, and other things that are not important to survival and reproduction. It's to be expected that God would design these qualities, but if they evolved naturally that is another unlikely coincidence.

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This falls into the category of what Paul Draper calls the "fallacy of understated evidence," where a general fact about the universe is more likely on theism than naturalism, but where there are more specific facts that actually tip the evidential scale in favor of naturalism once examined.

For example, the idea that we would have a desire to know the truth may be more likely on theism, but the fact that we have so many cognitive biases and reasoning errors infecting the way that we go about discovering things is more likely on naturalism than theism.

Percivale said:

One hypothesis, God, explains several diverse phenomena that require multiple hypotheses to explain without God, and which don't do as well. Thus God is the most probable explanation for the universe, life, and the human psychology, and it is more rational to be a theist than an atheist.

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The God hypothesis is riddled with ad hoc reasoning, makes no predictions that are borne out in what we observe, and is too complex to serve as a good explanation. As to the last point, it's somewhat ironic that you would list something like human psychology as something that God explains when a God, as a personal being, would require its own sort of psychology to explain God's thoughts, emotions, and motivations, and this psychology would be completely unlike what we know of our own psychology.

Davian said:

How do we test this hypothesis?

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Test?

Received said:

Test?

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Is that a word that you are unfamiliar with?

Davian said:

Is that a word that you are unfamiliar with?

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You just answered a question with a question.

What do you mean by "test"? Scientific or general (and if general, why would you open the possibility of confusing your readers by using it with hypothesis which connotes a scientific usage)?

Percivale said:

Here's the evidence I find most convincing that God exists.

Our universe had a beginning. The Big Bang is accepted by nearly all scientists.
If the universe had a beginning, either there is an eternal multiverse or succession of universes, or God created it. To say it just happened without a cause I see as highly irrational, but for sake of argument I'll pretend it is possible.

The multiverse or succession of universes means there have been an actual infinite number of universes. That raises some logical difficulties. It also means everything happening now has already happened an infinite number of times. Also, the second law of thermodynamics has to be 100% false on that ultimate level. I don't say it's impossible, but it's a pretty huge concept.

We have four options then. If none of them have any observational evidence and are equally good at explaining the universe, it is equally rational to favor any of them.

Life had a beginning. Either God made it, or an extremely unlikely coincidence did. (panspermia, etc, just pushes the problem back a step.)
Life arising from nonlife is totally unobserved, so not more probable than God.

Humans are wired to want to know what is ultimately true, to desire meaning, beauty, and other things that are not important to survival and reproduction. It's to be expected that God would design these qualities, but if they evolved naturally that is another unlikely coincidence.

One hypothesis, God, explains several diverse phenomena that require multiple hypotheses to explain without God, and which don't do as well. Thus God is the most probable explanation for the universe, life, and the human psychology, and it is more rational to be a theist than an atheist.

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Ok, you believe a God created the universe, I got that part.

Now, which God created the universe?

Received said:

You just answered a question with a question.

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It was necessary, given the brevity of your response.

Received said:

What do you mean by "test"? Scientific or general (and if general, why would you open the possibility of confusing your readers by using it with hypothesis which connotes a scientific usage)?

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That is up to him, as it is his hypothesis. Given the context of the paragraphs that preceded it, one might presume a scientific hypothesis. Ask him yourself.

Percivale said:

Here's the evidence I find most convincing that God exists.

Our universe had a beginning. The Big Bang is accepted by nearly all scientists.
If the universe had a beginning, either there is an eternal multiverse or succession of universes, or God created it.
To say it just happened without a cause I see as highly irrational, but for sake of argument I'll pretend it is possible.

The multiverse or succession of universes means there have been an actual infinite number of universes. That raises some logical difficulties. It also means everything happening now has already happened an infinite number of times. Also, the second law of thermodynamics has to be 100% false on that ultimate level. I don't say it's impossible, but it's a pretty huge concept.

We have four options then. If none of them have any observational evidence and are equally good at explaining the universe, it is equally rational to favor any of them.

Life had a beginning. Either God made it, or an extremely unlikely coincidence did. (panspermia, etc, just pushes the problem back a step.)
Life arising from nonlife is totally unobserved, so not more probable than God.

Humans are wired to want to know what is ultimately true, to desire meaning, beauty, and other things that are not important to survival and reproduction. It's to be expected that God would design these qualities, but if they evolved naturally that is another unlikely coincidence.

One hypothesis, God, explains several diverse phenomena that require multiple hypotheses to explain without God, and which don't do as well. Thus God is the most probable explanation for the universe, life, and the human psychology, and it is more rational to be a theist than an atheist.

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The ever same old sleght of hand:
If there are more than one equally speculative, extraordinary, non-explanatory hypotheses, and you want A to win, you hold B,C and D to strict standards, explain how they are speculative, extraordinary, non-explanatory, and then simply declare A the winner.
We aren´t spring chickens here. We know all the tricks in the book.

Percivale said:

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Life arising from nonlife is totally unobserved,

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Do you have a definition of "life" that would include all of the biology we observe on Earth, and gods, if you think such things are required.

Percivale said:

so not more probable than God.

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How did you calculate those odds?

Davian said:

It was necessary, given the brevity of your response.

That is up to him, as it is his hypothesis. Given the context of the paragraphs that preceded it, one might presume a scientific hypothesis. Ask him yourself.

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So you don't know the meaning of your own term because it's conditional on him, who hasn't yet answered?

The hypothesis that everything happens because the FSM does it with his invisible, noodly appendages (sauce be upon him) explains a lot, too. Doesn't mean it's right.

Percivale said:

Here's the evidence I find most convincing that God exists.

Our universe had a beginning. The Big Bang is accepted by nearly all scientists.
If the universe had a beginning, either there is an eternal multiverse or succession of universes, or God created it.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure those are the only options. There's alot we still don't understand, and what we don't know might help us understand what possible explanation there are.

Also, I'm not sure the multiverse would be 'eternal'. It might make more sense to call whatever is beyond the universe 'timeless'.

To say it just happened without a cause I see as highly irrational, but for sake of argument I'll pretend it is possible.

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Well if time began with the Big Bang, then the universe likely wouldn't have a cause in the traditional sense. It might have an explanation, but it might not make sense to call that explanation a cause.

I agree that the idea of a universe without an explanation might seem strange, but the universe definitely is strange (see quantum mechanics).

It could be that the nature of reality is that things must exist. Ie: non-existence was never an option.

The multiverse or succession of universes means there have been an actual infinite number of universes.

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Well not necessarily. There could be a limited number. As far as I know, there's no reason to think they would be have to be infinite.

That raises some logical difficulties. It also means everything happening now has already happened an infinite number of times. Also, the second law of thermodynamics has to be 100% false on that ultimate level. I don't say it's impossible, but it's a pretty huge concept.

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I don't see how these are difficulties; they are just strange possible conclusions.

We have four options then. If none of them have any observational evidence and are equally good at explaining the universe, it is equally rational to favor any of them.

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I'm not sure it's as rational to favour the God concept. There's no reason to think a transcendent mind would have desires (ie: to want to make humans).

Life had a beginning. Either God made it, or an extremely unlikely coincidence did. (panspermia, etc, just pushes the problem back a step.)
Life arising from nonlife is totally unobserved, so not more probable than God.

Click to expand...

Extremely unlikely things happen in a large universe.

It's unlikely that any particular persons wins the lottery, but it isn't unlikely that someone does.

Humans are wired to want to know what is ultimately true, to desire meaning, beauty, and other things that are not important to survival and reproduction. It's to be expected that God would design these qualities, but if they evolved naturally that is another unlikely coincidence.

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Unnecessary things evolving isn't strange.

But I'm not sure caring about things like truth, meaning, and beauty are necessarily unimportant to survival. They could perhaps create a stronger bond in a tribe, or give people motivation. That helps survival. (I'm just coming up with these off the top of my head though).

One hypothesis, God, explains several diverse phenomena that require multiple hypotheses to explain without God, and which don't do as well. Thus God is the most probable explanation for the universe, life, and the human psychology, and it is more rational to be a theist than an atheist.

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And God could explain both the Sun's movement (which is actually the Earth's), and why rain comes. With science it takes more than one explanation. But that doesn't mean God is a better explanation than the scientific explanation.

You jumping to the conclusion of God is just like what people did in the past... and got it wrong.

With all due respect.

Received said:

So...

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I do recall that someone (USincognito) in the Physical & Life Sciences forum observed that the likelihood of a post, position, or argument was about to be misrepresented neared 100% when the responder began with the word "So".

I believe it was to be called "So's Law".

Received said:

...you don't know the meaning of your own term because it's conditional on him, who hasn't yet answered?

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If I recall your comment from post #8, the issue was determining the *type* of hypothesis, not the meaning of the word.

Does the idea of testing your beliefs cause you cognitive dissonance?

Davian said:

I do recall that someone (USincognito) in the Physical & Life Sciences forum observed that the likelihood of a post, position, or argument was about to be misrepresented neared 100% when the responder began with the word "So".

I believe it was to be called "So's Law".

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Likelihood is correlational at best, doesn't consider the different populations of posters, and doesn't have any general stats otherwise. You know, since you're all about testing...

If I recall your comment from post #8, the issue was determining the *type* of hypothesis, not the meaning of the word.

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What did you mean by "test", again?

Does the idea of testing your beliefs cause you cognitive dissonance?

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1) If I knew what the heck you mean by "test", then I could answer that.

2) No, it's even worse. I cry myself to sleep at night.

Received said:

Likelihood is correlational at best, doesn't consider the different populations of posters, and doesn't have any general stats otherwise. You know, since you're all about testing...

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I can leave it as an interesting observation.

Received said:

What did you mean by "test", again?

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" a critical examination, observation, or evaluation : trial; specifically : the procedure of submitting a statement to such conditions or operations as will lead to its proof or disproof or to its acceptance or rejection <a test of a statistical hypothesis> (2) : a basis for evaluation" - Merriam Webster.

The specifics of the test would depend on how he defines "God". Where has the OP gone, anyway?

Received said:

1) If I knew what the heck you mean by "test", then I could answer that.

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Whatever.

Received said:

2) No, it's even worse. I cry myself to sleep at night.

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Do you find your participation in these forums to be therapeutic?

Percivale said:

Our universe had a beginning. The Big Bang is accepted by nearly all scientists.
If the universe had a beginning, either there is an eternal multiverse or succession of universes, or God created it. To say it just happened without a cause I see as highly irrational, but for sake of argument I'll pretend it is possible.

Click to expand...

This is why I'm an agnostic atheist instead of just an atheist. A common conclusion is Deism, but I don't want to make that strong of a claim.

If our faith is based on reason, we of all men should be pitied.