I saw God yesterday, therefore, God Exists

3017amen

I was thinking what if someone, say a friend, comes to you and say's " I heard God talk to me yesterday and he/she told me thus and so", would you believe it? Or, " I saw God and he spoke to me and told me not to be afraid about...". Or perhaps even still, along the lines of phenomenology, if someone has an experience where they felt : " it was like I heard a voice that said not to worry, I will take care of you. Then out of nowhere, people came into my life and provided answers to my problem I was having."

The point is, if you did not experience any of those things, what would compel another uninterested person to believe, or think, or infer, that those experiences were a result of some sense of Deity? The concept of Revelation basically describes or explains the so-called phenomenal experience that may have occurred in (our stream of) consciousness. And understanding that those experiences are primarily subjective in nature (a Subjective Truth), how would one in turn, go about proving a God exists without an objective verification? Is it through inductive reasoning?

One scenario could be that unless God, hypothetically breaks into a world wide internet transmission or appears on TV where a collective body would see, there wouldn't be such an objective verification possible. And even so, one could still argue that God's appearance was somehow fake or photoshopped.

And so my so-called thesis statement is, what do people expect when someone say's God Exists? Here's somewhat of an example or parody:

Layperson: God spoke to me yesterday
Atheist: Yeah right, and Santa Claus spoke to me too
Theist: That's awesome, I had a similar experience

Layperson: Oh thanks Theist. But Atheist, aren't you being cynical?
Atheist: No, I just don't believe in God
Theist: Don't worry layperson, he's in denial or angry about something or another

Layperson: Well, I could understand the anger and resentment from say religious fundamentalism and nonsensical ontological rhetoric about God's attributes.
Atheist: Yeah, that's right. It makes no sense
Theist: The atheist has no faith.

Layperson: Well, aside from having a so-called religious experience, perhaps in fact, the atheist never had one. Beyond that subjective experience, much of life does not make sense anyway. So, what is the atheist's argument based upon? I mean, he doesn't even understand his own (conscious) existence, so how could he know that a God doesn't exist? Besides, science still hasn't been able to create a universe.
Atheist: No, life and the universe makes perfect sense, I can prove it!
Theist: Yeah, so can I!

Layperson: Okay you guys, prove to me that life and existence is purely objective (a priori), logical and all figured out... (ToE).

So for the 101 student, what are people looking for to prove God's existence? What domains of Philosophy are appropriate? What domains of Science are appropriate?

180 Proof

April Fool's, huh? :joke:

I was thinking what if someone, say a friend, comes to you and say's "I heard God talk to me yesterday and he/she told me thus and so", would you believe it? Or, "I saw God and he spoke to me and told me not to be afraid about...". Or perhaps even still, along the lines of phenomenology, if someone has an experience where they felt : "it was like a heard a voice that said not to worry, I will take care of you. Then out of nowhere, people came into my life and provided answers to my problem I was having." — 3017amen

Call me a cynic for subscribing to the old adage "When you talk to g/G it's prayer, but when g/G talks back it's probably schizophrenia" which I'd first heard back in the late '70s in Jesuit high school from a devout priest. :eyes:

Frank Apisa

I acknowledge that a GOD might exist. It is possible. It is also possible that no gods exist.

I choose not to guess either way...although it seems certain that one is correct.

If a person says, "There are no gods"...I know that person is just sharing a blind guess.

If a person says, "At least one god exists...and that god has (in some way) revealed itself to me"...I just ask, "How do you know you are not deluding yourself?"

I've encountered several people who claim to have had a god reveal itself to them...but have never had one of them respond reasonably to the question I ask. Most merely offer, "I know I am not deluding myself"...and then refuse to discuss it further.

Not sure if that is applicable to what you are discussing here, but I hope it does.

Frank Apisa

Call me a cynic for subscribing to the old adage "When you talk to g/G it's prayer, but when g/G talks back it's probably schizophrenia" which I'd first heard back in the late '70s in Jesuit high school from a devout priest. :eyes: — 180 Proof

The Jebbies were good that way. They were tough, but they were about as down to Earth as any of the orders.

christian2017

I was thinking what if someone, say a friend, comes to you and say's "I heard God talk to me yesterday and he/she told me thus and so", would you believe it? Or, "I saw God and he spoke to me and told me not to be afraid about...". Or perhaps even still, along the lines of phenomenology, if someone has an experience where they felt : "it was like a heard a voice that said not to worry, I will take care of you. Then out of nowhere, people came into my life and provided answers to my problem I was having."
— 3017amen
Call me a cynic for subscribing to the old adage "When you talk to g/G it's prayer, but when g/G talks back it's probably schizophrenia" which I'd first heard back in the late '70s in Jesuit high school from a devout priest. :eyes: — 180 Proof

this is a common theme associated with private schools associated with the Roman Papacy. The Roman Papacy has had alot of scandals in the past 40 to 50 years related to sexual conduct.

3017amen

↪180 Proof

Hey 180!

Thanks for that. Actually, I'm the one who had the latter experience. I could go into somewhat shocking details of totally unplanned happenstance; an unsolicited phone call from a lending institution(s) for ALOT of money, an unsolicited individual appearing at my doorstep offering me something, an unsolicited employer offering me something, and a few more unsolicited things... . All of which I accepted to my delight.

Your comment made me think that, ironically enough, I had dated a Christian girl in college who said she was a schizophrenic, and hindsight being 20/20, I should have explored that with her a bit more...of course I don't know how much of it she would have been aware of anyway. It's an interesting thing to study though... . That maybe answers one of my questions about which domains of science could speak to phenomenology: cognitive science. Of course, we can also make inferences based upon other sciences... .

3017amen

I've encountered several people who claim to have had a god reveal itself to them...but have never had one of them respond reasonably to the question I ask. Most merely offer, "I know I am not deluding myself"...and then refuse to discuss it further. — Frank Apisa

Hey Frank!

Well, one possible 'logical' response could be in that scenario, as well as other scenarios or experiences: "Either God exists, or there is a heck of a lot of coincidence. And I choose to believe in the former/latter ."

And that sort of speaks to the concept or so-called logic behind Pascal's Wager (excluding the apologetic's about punishment, etc. etc.).

180 Proof

So for the 101 student, what are people looking for to prove God's existence? — 3017amen

As I've pointed out elsewhere - Predicates attributed (by scriptures? theology? metaphysics?) to g/G that entail evidence in the world which could not be caused by any other worldly (i.e. natural) entities and, thereby, be used as search parameters (i.e. where is g/G? when is g/G? what g/G has done that differentiates it from not-g/G?)

NB: Defeasible (& abductive, hypothetical-deductive) reasoning suffices. "Proof" obtains only in formal domains such as mathematics.

What domains of Philosophy are appropriate?

(a) Ontology (+ modal logic? actualist rather than possibilist).

(b) Epistemology (re: fallibilistic (e.g. Peirce, Dewey, Popper-Feyerabend) rather than justificatory).

What domains of Science are appropriate?

Conservation laws (i.e. fundamental physical symmetries) + physics (e.g. thermodynamics, quantum cosmology), chemistry (e.g. nucleogenesis, mass spectronomy + carbon-dating), & biology (e.g. neo-darwinian evolution, population genomics + proteomics, cognitive neuroscience).

Frank Apisa

Hey Frank!

Well, one possible 'logical' response could be in that scenario, as well as other scenarios or experiences: "Either God exists, or there is a heck of a lot of coincidence. And I choose to believe in the former/latter ." — 3017amen

Ignoring the use of "believe" in that comment, I have no idea of what that means. Do you choose the former or the latter?

And that sort of speaks to the concept or so-called logic behind Pascal's Wager (excluding the apologetic's about punishment, etc. etc.). — Amen

As I have mentioned several times...it is a toss up between Pascal's Wager and Occam's Razor for the most worthless philosophical prattle. Neither, in my opinion, is worth the ink used to print it on a page.

180 Proof

↪Frank Apisa

:pray: :up: :sweat:

3017amen

Predicates attributed (by scriptures? theology? metaphysics?) to g/G that entail evidence in the world which could not be caused by any other worldly (i.e. natural) entities and, thereby, be used as search parameters — 180 Proof

Can you give me some examples there?

Defeasible (& abductive, hypothetical-deductive) reasoning suffices. "Proof" obtains only in formal domains such as mathematics. — 180 Proof

Are you saying formal logic will not provide much help? If so, of course, I would agree. However, except for the following:

1. Abstract mathematical reasoning itself v. the Darwinian thought process.
2. The mathematical secret to the physical world (underlying same)
3. Laws of gravity not required for survival

There are more, but that's all for now :blush:

a) Ontology (+ modal logic? actualist rather than possibilist).

(b) Epistemology (re: fallibilistic (e.g. Peirce, Dewey, Popper-Feyerabend, Haack) rather than justificatory). — 180 Proof

Examples, in form of propositional statements?

Conservation laws (i.e. fundamental physical symmetries) + physics (e.g. thermodynamics, quantum cosmology), chemistry (e.g. nucleogenesis, mass spectronomy + carbon-dating), & biology (e.g. neo-darwinian evolution, population genomics + proteomics, cognitive neuroscience). — 180 Proof

Example, in the form of propositional statements or judgements?

And, thanks for your contributions!

Artemis

an unsolicited phone call from a lending institution(s) for ALOT of money, an unsolicited individual appearing at my doorstep offering me something, an unsolicited employer offering me something, and a few more unsolicited things... . All of which I accepted to my delight. — 3017amen

If spam is now proof of God, then he truly is Satan.

3017amen

Ignoring the use of "believe" in that comment, I have no idea of what that means. Do you choose the former or the latter? — Frank Apisa

Frank!

The former. I'm saying that the concept of a God certainly exists. Why wouldn't it? A concept of Santa exists too. Is there a difference to you? And is that subjective? And is subjectivity wrong, right or incorrect?

How would, in your view, Occam's razor square with theoretical physics and/or common everyday inference?

3017amen

↪Artemis

If your spam resulted in winning the lottery (not that that happened to me), would you then call your spam evil? (LOL)

Artemis

↪3017amen

If spam is God, then he's sitting right next to the Nigerian Prince in my trash folder. Hope they're enjoying each other's company!

3017amen

↪Artemis

Sorry for this observation; are you one of those stereotypical angry atheists? Do you have an axe to grind about something?

Sorry, without you adding anything constructive, your one-liner political statements seem to indicate such. Actually, ironically enough, you seem to be the typical Atheist from the OP/parody. (LOL)

Artemis

↪3017amen

You say this without any realization of irony, I presume?

3017amen

↪Artemis

You say this without any realization of ad hominem , I presume?

Artemis

↪3017amen

Again the irony: there are indeed ad hominems in our conversation. But you won't find them in my posts.

3017amen

↪Artemis

Funny, I could have sworn you meant to say contradiction.

LOL

Artemis

↪3017amen

Sorry, but you'll have to be less cryptic about that one.

Frank Apisa

3017amen
1.5k
Ignoring the use of "believe" in that comment, I have no idea of what that means. Do you choose the former or the latter?
— Frank Apisa

Frank!

The former. I'm saying that the concept of a God certainly exists. Why wouldn't it? A concept of Santa exists too. Is there a difference to you? And is that subjective? And is subjectivity wrong, right or incorrect? — 3017amen

Just attempting to understand where you stand, Amen. The "I believe in the former/latter" did not compute.

Yeah, the concept of a god exists...but what does that do for the conversation. The concept of everything for which there is a word...exists.

Maybe I am dense, but I do not understand what point you are trying to make.

How would, in your view, Occam's razor square with theoretical physics and/or common everyday inference?

In my opinion, Occam's razor is crap...and MUCH too given to misuse. But even if used the way Occam intended...it leads to error as often as to truth. It is totally useless in much (perhaps most) of modern physics and quantum mechanics.

It is a simplistic look at how to do science...and while it may have had applicability back in the 14th century...it has almost none right now. (Same holds for most philosophical paradigms constructed to show a God exists.)

3017amen

Yeah, the concept of a god exists...but what does that do for the conversation. The concept of everything for which there is a word...exists. — Frank Apisa

Frank!

Great comments, thanks. Well, lets parse the meaning of concepts and reality. If it is true that we live primarily in an abstract reality, what would it be to distinguish between what is real and not real?

For instance, other than the physical, it appears that there are more abstract things existing than there are concrete things existing (if you were to include the concept of time) to a value of 3 to 1 (the mental, mathematics, time itself, and the physical--respectively)? In other words there are more abstract things that exist, no?

It is a simplistic look at how to do science... — Frank Apisa

I thought that probability theory ( justification of Occam's razor ) was alive and well, no?

Hanover

So for the 101 student, what are people looking for to prove God's existence? — 3017amen

I think the concept of faith has changed dramatically from the way it was presented in ancient texts from the way we consider it now. We consider faith to be that unshakable belief that comes to us without any sort of empirical proof, arising out of a sense of wonder, the impossibility of offering other explanations, and hope, emotion, or whatever. Someone who believes in God because he saw God is not a man of great faith any more than someone who believes in trees because he saw a tree. You can't prove God by reference to empirical evidence because if you did, you would be misunderstanding the epistemological method for believing in God, which is through faith alone.

Kierkegaard wrote that he found Abraham's acceptance of God's request that he sacrifice Isaac to be the ultimate act of faith. Abraham didn't question, but he just went up the mountain to kill his son that he loved so dearly. I found that act not one of faith at all, though, not at least as we currently understand faith to be. The text shows that Abraham spoke directly to God, that God told him that his wife Sarah would bear a child at the age of 90, and then she did. If God told me my 90 year old wife was going to get pregnant and then she did, I would believe in God because of that, not because of any great faith.

My point being that when you say "God," and I think of the God of the Old Testament, I think you prove his existence in ancient times by seeing such things as his speaking the universe into existence, his warning of and then bringing a great flood, his having manna fall from heaven, his splitting of the red sea, and many other miracles. If that all happened back then, you didn't need faith. Today, you just gotta believe. Which means you don't prove God exists now, you try to offer people the advantages of belief, which is why converting someone to a religion is such a different process than convincing someone their house is on fire.

Frank Apisa

3017amen
1.5k
Yeah, the concept of a god exists...but what does that do for the conversation. The concept of everything for which there is a word...exists.
— Frank Apisa

Frank!

Great comments, thanks. Well, lets parse the meaning of concepts and reality. If it is true that we live primarily in an abstract reality, what would it be to distinguish between what is real and not real? — 3017amen

If existence is just an illusion...there is no way to do that. I do not know...and neither does anyone else.

Question: Is existence an illusion?

Only reasonable answer: Beats the hell out of me.

For instance, other than the physical, it appears that there are more abstract things existing than there are concrete things existing (if you were to include the concept of time) to a value of 3 to 1 (the mental, mathematics, time itself, and the physical--respectively)? In other words there are more abstract things that exist, no? — Amen

I have no idea...and I suspect neither does anyone else. We can make guesses...and play with those guesses...but EXISTENCE may be something so different from what homo sapiens is able to conceptualize...that best to just leave it be.

We don't even know for certain what exists right here in the supposed space we occupy. There may be dimensions of REALITY that humans cannot sense...and cannot even envision.

It is a simplistic look at how to do science...
— Frank Apisa

I thought that probability theory ( justification of Occam's razor ) was alive and well, no? — Amen

Probability theory is NOT a justification of Occam's razor. Nothing is. It was a thought that came up at one point in our history...and now is virtually useless.

I repeat what I said earlier: Using Occam's razor will result in as many incorrect conclusions as correct.

christian2017

So for the 101 student, what are people looking for to prove God's existence?
— 3017amen

I think the concept of faith has changed dramatically from the way it was presented in ancient texts from the way we consider it now. We consider faith to be that unshakable belief that comes to us without any sort of empirical proof, arising out of a sense of wonder, the impossibility of offering other explanations, and hope, emotion, or whatever. Someone who believes in God because he saw God is not a man of great faith any more than someone who believes in trees because he saw a tree. You can't prove God by reference to empirical evidence because if you did, you would be misunderstanding the epistemological method for believing in God, which is through faith alone.

Kierkegaard wrote that he found Abraham's acceptance of God's request that he sacrifice Isaac to be the ultimate act of faith. Abraham didn't question, but he just went up the mountain to kill his son that he loved so dearly. I found that act not one of faith at all, though, not at least as we currently understand faith to be. The text shows that Abraham spoke directly to God, that God told him that his wife Sarah would bear a child at the age of 90, and then she did. If God told me my 90 year old wife was going to get pregnant and then she did, I would believe in God because of that, not because of any great faith.

My point being that when you say "God," and I think of the God of the Old Testament, I think you prove his existence in ancient times by seeing such things as his speaking the universe into existence, his warning of and then bringing a great flood, his having manna fall from heaven, his splitting of the red sea, and many other miracles. If that all happened back then, you didn't need faith. Today, you just gotta believe. Which means you don't prove God exists now, you try to offer people the advantages of belief, which is why converting someone to a religion is such a different process than convincing someone their house is on fire. — Hanover

Both Faith and scientific theories are spectrums. Scientific theories have been disproven in the past (and yes i do believe in evolution). Faith can be based on almost no real sense of reality, some partial sense, or faith can be my good friend said he would give me $10 tommorow, so i'm going to be feeling confident he'll give me the $10 tommorow.

Scientific theories are very often proven with test result of 90%, 95% apparent certainty, but once in blue moon a variable or angle of perspective was overlooked, and thus the equation (or sometimes equations) changes completely (including output), and the theory atleast to a significant degree is disproven. This happens sometimes.

Valentinus

↪3017amen

We have had this discussion before but what the heck, let's try again. Maybe it will get better.

If you are having conversations with God, what is there to prove? The whole thing about proof, as something that people do, is to make something necessary beyond any doubt. If God starts talking to me in clear language that my tiny mind understands, it will be life changing and incommunicable to others. Other people don't want to hear about the good time I am having with God.

And I don't blame them for their resentment. It is really annoying to have other people claim a relation to stuff that others don't feel, share, or understand.

What could make for a different outcome?

Deleted User

I saw God yesterday, therefore, God Exists — 3017amen

It ought to read: I saw God yesterday, therefore God existed yesterday.

Today is a new mystery.

christian2017

We have had this discussion before but what the heck, let's try again. Maybe it will get better.

If you are having conversations with God, what is there to prove? The whole thing about proof, as something that people do, is to make something necessary beyond any doubt. If God starts talking to me in clear language that my tiny mind understands, it will be life changing and incommunicable to others. Other people don't want to hear about the good time I am having with God.

And I don't blame them for their resentment. It is really annoying to have other people claim a relation to stuff that others don't feel, share, or understand.

What could make for a different outcome? — Valentinus

true fiscal conservatism, embraced by people who are supposed to like true fiscal conservatism. I'm only half joking.

i suppose the answer you are looking for is the cliche, "religionist XYZ should love their neighbor as themselves", and then more people would be open to embrace a particular religion.

Not in your life time buddy. :)

Valentinus

↪christian2017

On the contrary. More space should be given to individual experience without the need for explaining why.

christian2017

On the contrary. More space should be given to individual experience without the need for explaining why. — Valentinus

I honestly don't know what the subject you are talking about. I know it is common for most users to ask for a clarification, just to prove a point or something along those lines, but at this point in time i don't know the context of what you are saying.

More space for what type of house to live in or what video game to buy? I agree with that. If you apply that phrase you gave to alot of things i would agree? But perhaps not all.

What is the context that you meant?

I saw God yesterday, therefore, God Exists

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