'My God Problem' by Natalie Angier

If the argument is over the existence of something which we disagree on, you want to win the argument by default? If the argument is over the existence of something which we disagree on, you want to win the argument by default?

It's a statement that cuts both ways. I can't accept your personally experienced revelation as my proof. Either we reach mutual agreement on what constitutes evidence for and against a proposition, or we never get beyond the simple gainsaying of each other's position.

So, you are saying that anyone who believes is irrational? 'Ware of carrying your own agendas into this. Faith is irrational. It's the belief in something without evidence. I don't use the term "irrational" pejoratively, but you say it yourself-- if logic "can't enter into the [faith] equation," then it is fundamentally an irrational (i.e. illogical, or perhaps "a-logical) equation.

I'm ok with people holding their own beliefs a-logically. I'm just not particularly comfortable with people claiming that their a-logical beliefs "explain" anything, or should be used as the basis for decisions which affect people who not only don't hold those beliefs, but can't recreate the process by which they're arrived at. And I certainly don't agree that my noting the fact should be labeled a "radical" position or "an attack" on someone else's belief.

Currently, questioning the conclusions which people of faith reach by means of that faith or by the doctrines that others of the same religion agree to (rather than evidence or rational argument) is seen as attacking their faith. But that's sort of like me punching you in the face, and then complaining that you're attacking me by throwing your face against my fist.

jpark, you say this a lot, but what you tout as evidence for the super- or supra-natural simply isn't evidence. Your argument is based on a conflation of small-f "faith" with capital-f "Faith"-- the fallacy of equivocation.

Because you don't accept evidence as evidentiary, doesn't make the evidence void. It only makes it unacceptable to you. Just because you choose to interpret something as evidence doesn't make it actually BE evidence. Face it, "supernatural evidence" is an oxymoron.

Your disregard for the evidence, however, in no way diminishes the evidence. I'm with Vincent. Let's see some, and then we can discuss whether or why it is or isn't "evidence." Because I think the sense in which I'm using it--

I already know you accept no evidence as evidence of God. That is OK. Lets return to your statement which prompted my comment: No, let's stick with this idea that the faithful base their faith on evidence. If it's based on evidence, how is it faith? What is the evidence, and why would it be categorized as evidence?

Such a statement is a deprecation of everyone who finds evidence of God. A more honorable statement would be 'I don't find evidence for God', which doesn't deprecate those who do. Like I said, you are very obviously using the term "evidence" in a different fashion than I am. People who believe in a god obviously have reasons for that belief, in the sense that they believe because of certain things; what they don't have is evidence that their belief is true or valid.

You should note that many very bright people, even scientists, believe in God. They don't believe in him without evidence. Yes, they very obviously do. I'll repeat, "evidence" and "super- or supra-natural" are mutually exclusive terms.

As of right now, you've used a fallacy of equivocation, twice, and an appeal to authority. It seems as though you're simply trying to avoid having to discuss what constitutes "evidence."

I made no reference to "magic," jpark, but to the "supra-natural" or "supernatural." Both those terms have specific meanings

People who believe in God do so because they find credible evidence of his existence. People who don't believe in him do so because they don't find credible evidence of his existence. In both cases, if the person is rational, their belief has nothing to do with their preferences. You really should stop using the word "evidence." If one person takes something as "evidence" and another takes it as "not evidence," there is obviously a need to resolve whether it is, in fact "evidence." This is the conversation you avoided earlier. You can't simply bypass it, and pretend that you've resolved the issue. That's "believing" based on your preferences.

People who believe do so because they have reasons for believing. Those reasons do not necessarily (and in my opinion, do not at all) equate to "evidence."

"Faith" based on evidence is "theory," and theories are open to disproof (which rational people do not take to mean "attacks on one's faith"). As mentioned before, religious faith is not logically based. If you think it is, you're using words in a manner in which few other people use them.

And, ultimately, you cannot deny that some people insist on God's existence precisely because they are afraid of Hell, or need someone to tell them what to do. Those may not be all the religious, or even the majority, but their existence undercuts your "faith is rational" position. People still accept Pascal's wager, despite the fact that it is flawed, and based on a false dichotomy. If that's rationality, it's an exceedingly poor example of it.

I have no intention of trying to convince you that there is a God. You have, in many different threads, shown that you will reject all evidence for God's existence. Nice. That's a convenient way to lay the blame on me without having to actually defend your position-- what I would call a morally and intellectually bankrupt ploy. I haven't asked you to convince me that there is a God, I've asked you to define what you call "evidence," given that you consistently claim that it is plentiful and easily pointed to.

Let's take your two examples-- with evolution, some people will disagree as to the ramifications arising from the existence of the fossil record, the relationship of species pointed at by similarities in DNA, clades, phenotypes, population distributions, et cetera. But they can point to those things. They can say that these are physically existing examples upon which to base a theory-- in this case, descent with modification. With AGW, we can measure temperatures and compare them to past recorded temperatures, take ice core samples to derive estimates of previous temperatures and the presence of greenhouse gases, etcetera. Again, these things exist physically, and are things upon which a theory can be based.

There may be competing theories (in the case of evolution, not so much, in the case of AGW, obviously a lot), but those theories are based upon evidence-- physical clues which we try to fit into an explanation.

Faith is not a theory. But you are arguing as though it is one. You claim that there is evidence and that faith is achieved through a rational consideration of the evidence and the construction of a theory which explains it. I disagree. I don't think that faith is arrived at by a rational consideration of physical and natural specimens, followed by the construction of a theory which explains those things. I think that if people of faith consider evidence, at all, they do so by carefully selecting which evidence they feel supports their faith. But the faith is already there, not something that they arrive at through the consideration of what's before them.

Whether I reject "evidence of God's existence" isn't even a question that we can agree has any sense, if you cannot define what constitutes "evidence," "faith," or "theory." And it really seems to me as though you can't.

I'm not trying to be an @!$%#, jpark. I'm trying to understand how you understand the terms which you are using, which seem at odds with the meanings of the terms as commonly understood. This goes directly back to the point of my article: quoting Dawkins--""Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence." Where's the theological seeking of new evidence? If science and religion really are non-overlapping magisteria, why is it such an issue when a non-theist refutes truth-claims offered by religionists, based on evidence or its lack?

Your argument is a case in point: you have an issue based on your belief that I will reject your "evidence," and rather than discuss the issue, you've retreated into a position that equates to "I know I'm right, and I refuse to even discuss the evidence." How is that remotely a rational position?

It is your turn to say "No, none of this means anything. I don't believe any of it." I'd rather ask you why you think it constitutes "evidence." When you say We don't know how the universe came into being. There is a God who has said he created it, isn't this simply circular reasoning? How is it evidence?

Look, you're mostly pointing to things other people have said as being evidence, but how does it satisfy any conditions of evidence? For example, I could say that I created the universe. Is that evidence? Other religions have other texts, and can make arguments similar to yours. Are their texts evidence? If I were to define what constitutes evidence in this regard, I would say that when you speak of ancient myths and stories as evidence, the problem is that first you have to show that your interpretation of what they said is correct, then you have to show that what they meant by what they said and how you interpret what they meant are the same things. Only then would you be able to claim that what was said constitutes "evidence" upon which to base a theory (which, even then, would still be arguable).

I feel as though you skip that part. What conditions does something have to pass in order for you to consider it evidence of anything? By what criteria do you consider one assertion or set of observations to be "evidence" and others to be simply statements or disconnected pieces of information? I'm not interested in refuting a laundry list of things which you think constitute evidence for God. It should be obvious by this time that we have different definitions. I am interested in what your definition is, and why you hold that definition as rational or acceptable, especially since you insist on inserting certain terms into these discussion that clearly hold a different meaning for you than they do for most other people.

If we can't agree on the core definitions, then, of course, we're relegated to a back and forth barrage of comments, in which you say "is, too" and I say "is not" (or vice versa). That doesn't get anyone anywhere.

How do you define acceptable evidence? What is your assessment of Job's knowledge of things he could not possibly have deduced or observed. I think I already stated this. If I were to define what constitutes evidence in this regard, I would say that when you speak of ancient myths and stories as evidence, the problem is that first you have to show that your interpretation of what they said is correct, then you have to show that what they meant by what they said and how you interpret what they meant are the same things. Only then would you be able to claim that what was said constitutes "evidence" upon which to base a theory (which, even then, would still be arguable).

My ideas about what constitutes "evidence" for an argument revolve around, first, showing that the "evidence" exists discretely (i.e. it is a thing or situation which can be identified), and only then using it to support an argument. In your argument above, you provide things which could be considered evidence along with things which, IMO, don't meet the criteria.

• all the basic forces in the universe are finely tuned to form a universe as it is is factually based, although I'm not sure I'd use the word "tuned." But the basic forces are what they are, and changing them would result in a difference in the universe. We can call that evidence, although it supports multiple arguments.
• There is a God who has said he created [the universe] is not factually based. It's simply an assertion that assumes the truth of what's being discussed. Therefore, it isn't evidence.
• Job knew that there was no land at the north and that the earth was not held up by anything. This might be evidence, but first you would have to satisfy the criteria I already mentioned-- is this what was said, does this mean what you say it means, are there better explanations for the meaning, et cetera? If you could show those answers satisfactorily, you could use it as evidence, but in the absence of those answers, it doesn't meet the criteria.

I've now twice gone over at least some outlines of what I think "evidence" means. You have yet to do so. Why?

And why are you asking me to refute your example of Job, when you've already stated Presenting evidence for you to say "I reject that" is pointless? Why would you think my answer would be any different from the first time we discussed that?