Because, for 70+ years our love was nurtured by her physical presence. She died last April, but her physical presence is no longer necessary to keep our love alive. Someday neuroscientists may be able to point out the exact circuits in my brain that keep memories alive, and conclude that when I die those memories cease and therefore my love for her has died. Not so. I have told her that I “would love her longer than forever”. And I believe it–even more strongly than I believe what science has taught me about this wonderful material Universe.
Al Leo
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Thanks Al. To me those things look like things that people sometimes do and feel as part and parcel of being human. It’s a set of good things and bad things, but I leave them all in that set. I don’t see the measure of truth in what you say there, but I understand that you do.
What I meant by “some definite knowledge” is that people seem to draw connections with vaguer concepts like “spirituality” and more definite beliefs about specific gods, their desires and requirements, etc. I understand the connection, but I don’t see how “A” automatically leads to “B”.
I always thought of “agnosticism” as a position people claim when they’re on the fence about a specific (or definite, hmmm maybe “specific” would have been a better word for me to use above) God. He might exist, or He might not, so to speak. Not everyone uses it that way though.
The question again is "Is there only one aspect to Reality (physical or matter/energy) or more than one? Materialists say one, Western dualists say two (natural and supernatural,) I say there are three, physical, rational, and spiritual.
One could use light as a model, the physical is blue light, the rational is red light, and the spiritual is yellow light. Those who say that only the physical is real are saying that everything is blue. They can see but not light which is other than blue. The primary benefit here is that this position is simple and understandable. Those who are dualists see light in two spectra, blue and red, which is fuller, but not complete and suffers from being dualistic.
The final position is people see in all three primary colors, blue, red, and yellow, so we can see in all colors and white and black. Clearly this is the best point of view, but it is only marginally better than the other two. If people are accustomed to the monist or dualist views that often find rationales to justify them and resist change, particularly since it seems to be foreign to how we have been programed by education and life.
However like the yellow added to the blue and red, the spiritual is the additional aspect that completes the picture and makes it whole.
How do you determine that those testimonies are true? This gets us back to the original question of how one determines if something is made up or imagined.[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:100, topic:36642”]
But you (I predict here) have already ruled out all of that as out-of-bounds since it too can fall afoul the charge of “groupthink” or collective confirmation bias and such --and sometimes we have accepted false things in those ways too. It does still carry subjectivity and some risk. But many of us Christians are okay with that.
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As I have said before, what you believe through faith is your choice. What I am trying to highlight is the atheist position which is that faith based beliefs are not compelling. We are looking for evidence that is independent of the believer, evidence that can be verified objectively. This is simply a point of divergence for our worldviews.[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:100, topic:36642”]
For example, like you, we want to actively embrace the non-scientific notion (a 100% faith conviction) that human life is precious and to be given dignity and rights --and we (on faith alone) are willing to live knowing that this is objectively true enough for us to think that others ought to live by this too whether or not they or their culture agrees with it.
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I don’t see how faith enters into it. I am not claiming that these things are objective facts. Human rights are a preference, how I wish the world to be. Other people happen to have the same wishes, so we work together to make that world a reality.[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:100, topic:36642”]
I know you well enough by now to know exactly how you follow this: so how do you know which prophet person to follow? The answer: by their fruits, and by how what they say comports with how Jesus lived, taught, and even gave himself for others.
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Why don’t you compare it to what Mohammed taught or what Buddha, David Koresh, Joseph Smith, or the Vedas taught? It would seem to me that you start with the assumption that the New Testament is true, and then base all other conclusions on that assumption.
I can use a spectrophotometer to empirically and objectively measure the existence of all wavelengths of light, from radio waves to visible light to x-rays. Where are the empirical and objective measurements for the spiritual?
In the end, you could use your same argument for anything you want. You could argue that leprechauns and fairies are like different colors of light that people refuse to see. You could say that you have mountains of evidence for invisible fire breathing dragons, but then refuse to present that evidence because I will refuse to see it. You could redefine rainbows as being part of the spiritual, and then claim that rainbows are evidence for leprechauns. You wouldn’t accept any of this supposed evidence or arguments for things you currently don’t believe in.
Surely you can understand why believing something to be true is not evidence that something is true.
And there are over a billion living counter-examples in the world today whose very existence is the evidence for how spectacularly false your above statement is. You would have to heavily qualify it as: “… not compelling to us who are persistent atheists” before it begins to have truth.
Then you look in vain for something that does not exist. There is no way to comprehend any phenomena, much less marshal it as evidence without prior belief having already providing the past and present structure for your entire approach to your world. Without a believing people accepting God’s grace, there is no Christianity to find. Christianity is not in any test tube or petri dish. It’s in the hearts and lives of human beings.
Many of those are studied and compared — not by me personally since I don’t have that much time. But you are right – I do (when I’m at my best) measure everything with Christ as my standard. So when you go on to say …
You begin to see the light. You aren’t going to have any more luck attacking Christian foundations here than you will walking into a mathematician’s convention and declaring that they need to prove all their axioms before they can make use of any. Remind me why you repeatedly do this again? I don’t recall ever hearing any answer at all provided about why it is rational for someone who claims to love science should then make it a point of science to try to debase explicit religious faith. I don’t think any Christians here are attacking friendly dispassionate atheism itself as irrational. We repeatedly demonstrate to you the plausibility (and even –to us – the evidential probability) of our beliefs without falsely inflating that up into a proof that it isn’t. Do you have any coherent reason you can give for why you should be expending all this energy poking people on a religious site with “But how can you really know?” regarding their axiomatic religious foundations? Good answers have been given before, but you’ve already rejected or ignored those.
What are you hoping for here? Are you hoping that you can somehow paint religious believers into some logical corner? Even if you began to succeed in that mission by latching onto some compelling (to us) argument that you’ve failed to find thus far, what would that do for you or for science?
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Earlier you wrote: “What I am trying to highlight is the atheist position which is that faith based beliefs are not compelling.”
I will ask you what Pilate is said to have asked Jesus: “What IS Truth?” I’'m guessing your answer will be: "Anything science can prove is truth (with a small ‘t’). But you also claimed that faith-based beliefs are not compelling. Well, Jesus and many of his followers felt compelled to sacrifice their lives for some sort of principle. What was it? If it was not Truth (capital ‘T’), it certainly was a faith-based belief. Since Truth may exist only in the Mind of God and never be completely accessible to us humans, even to Nobel prize winners, I will take a reason-based faith as the next best thing.
Al Leo
Mervin, you and I seem to be in close agreement in most of our posts. But not on this point. I welcome T.aquaticus’ ideas. I have debated the faith/atheist subject with my colleagues throughout most of my scientific career, and have enjoyed sharpening my Faith by considering their ideas. That’s why I don’t consider T.aquaticus’ posts as an attack, but rather the opportunity to get an insight into an intellect that has constructed a world view quite different from my own. Blessing on you both.
Al Leo
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I am qualifying it as “not compelling to atheists”. I have not attached any truth statements to it.
Also, the majority of the world does not find the Christian argument to be compelling.[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:107, topic:36642”]
Then you look in vain for something that does not exist. There is no way to comprehend any phenomena, much less marshal it as evidence without prior belief having already providing the past and present structure for your entire approach to your world. Without a believing people accepting God’s grace, there is no Christianity to find. Christianity is not in any test tube or petri dish. It’s in the hearts and lives of human beings.
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Just as a counter point, we do not have to look in vain for evidence of such things as gravity, photons, or distant planets.[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:107, topic:36642”]
You aren’t going to have any more luck attacking Christian foundations here than you will walking into a mathematician’s convention and declaring that they need to prove all their axioms before they can make use of any.
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I am not attacking those foundations, just merely pointing them out. If you find Christianity worth believing in, then good for you. Again, I am just trying to define our positions so that we know where those differences are. All too often I am hear that atheists just refuse to accept evidence, but this discussion has shown that it comes down to faith.[quote=“Mervin_Bitikofer, post:107, topic:36642”]
Do you have any coherent reason you can give for why you should be expending all this energy poking people on a religious site with “But how can you really know?” regarding their axiomatic religious foundations? Good answers have been given before, but you’ve already rejected or ignored those.
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Good answers are in the eye of the beholder.
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I define “truth” as something that can be demonstrated to be true, independent of the person making the claim. It seems as though you define truth differently. Is truth whatever we want it to be? If we believe in something hard enough, does that make it true?
That is well and good – may we all be so inclined to continue learning. At what point, though, are you free to (at least tentatively, if not pragmatically) reach or live by a conclusion?
I can and do appreciate how much @T_aquaticus, among other nonbelievers as well have brought into this particular forum; and with exemplary civility sometimes in the face getting undue snarkiness from people like me. If it really is just about …
… then that seems a good thing to me. And I think we can consider those differences as having been examined in some depth by now. But that doesn’t mean a rehash is always unwarranted for the benefit of any newcomers. So I’ll try to keep my impatience in check.
And thank you, aleo, for your gracious words and standard-bearing spirit!
I know this was addressed to aleo, but this provokes one recollection for me that seems pertinent to share here. I think it was J.P. Moreland who I heard approvingly quote this definition of truth: truth is that which corresponds to reality. (My memory of the words --probably not the exact quote.)
That seems to me to have a significant difference with a definition that requires demonstration in that it leaves the door open for truths that may be there but are as yet un-demonstrated. Surely you would agree, @T_aquaticus, that it was just as true thousands of years ago as it is today that the earth goes around the sun? In short, truth remains truth regardless of our ability or inability to demonstrate, no? If you don’t agree with that, then I think this opens up a whole 'nother discussion of whether reality resides outside of us or only in our heads. I would be surprised if that kind of philosophy was of interest to you, though!
I would prefer to have a passionate, yet civil debate over a dispassionate debate any day. If we come away understanding each other a bit better then these discussions will have been worth it.
Just as a little insight, the reason that I do enter into these types of discussions is that atheists are often misunderstood or looked down on in American culture. A recent Gallup poll found that 43% of US voters would not vote for an atheist, which seems problematic to me. More people were willing to vote for a muslim than an atheist. The only way to turn this opinion around, IMHO, is to engage the Christian community, if only to show that the big bad atheists are not looking to rid the planet of Christians with evil atheist death rays. There are many, many atheists who support freedom of religion and are not seeking to stop religion, even if we seek to lessen the negative impacts that religious belief can have on a government meant for all people.
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Do you believe in American history?
The Revolutionary War, George Washington, the Constitution, the institution of slavery, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, Reconstruction, The Nadir of Segregation, the Progressive Movement, World War 1, the Jazz Age, Depression, Franklin D Roosevelt, New Deal, WW 2, Post War etc.
All of these facts are not empirical in terms of science, but they are all real and all true. They involve real people who must make real decisions that effect real people. To say that history and our role in history are not real, just because your view of what is real is limited to scientific is insane.
What I said was all people see the same thing, but they see them differently because they choose to see them in different lights. If you don’t know the difference between God and leprechauns, then I feel sorry for you. If you don’t have a good idea about the difference between right and wrong, I feel sorry for you.
The idea behind the Church is not to impose a specific view on everyone, but for people to work together to work out their own salvation by helping others. While there may not be empirical ways to measure the spiritual, there is an objective way to measure the spiritual and that is by Love. There is also an objective way to determine the rational and that is by Truth, even though there is no objective measurement.
Science is knowledge, but knowledge is useless unless it is used. It can be worse than useless if used for the wrong purpose. Since science does not tell us what is good and evil, right and wrong, so where does that leave us?
How are those things not empirical? We have photographs of Lincoln, for crying out loud. We can dig up artifacts from the Revolutionary War and use empirical means to reconstruct the battle. We have buildings standing today built by New Deal programs. We have physical things in the present that we can use to test our hypotheses of what happened in the past.[quote=“Relates, post:115, topic:36642”]
What I said was all people see the same thing, but they see them differently because they choose to see them in different lights. If you don’t know the difference between God and leprechauns, then I feel sorry for you. If you don’t have a good idea about the difference between right and wrong, I feel sorry for you.
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That really doesn’t advance the discussion. Instead of feeling sorry for me, show me how I am wrong. Demonstrate how I am wrong. It isn’t enough to say that we look at things differently, which is a form of post-modernism where everyone gets a trophy for being right. Would you go to a doctor that thinks bacterial infections are a manifestation of ancient ghosts taking hold of the body, which is just a different way of seeing things? Probably not, right?
If your beliefs are based on a foundation of faith, that’s fine. I’m not here to tell you what to believe or not believe. I am only telling you why I don’t believe it. I have also stated what type of evidence would change my mind. If you don’t have that type of evidence, then fine. It’s not the end of the world. You will believe what you believe based on faith, and I will not believe in those same things because I don’t find faith to be a compelling reason to believe something. Surely the world is large enough for both of us to exist.
That only leads to the question of how the spiritual is objectively measured by love, and why love is considered to be objective.
History is not based on archeology. History is based on documents. We use archeology to supplement documents or where there are no documents, and there we must interpret archeology. I take it that documents and theory are not considered empirical evidence.
You are wrong because you refuse to consider any other way to determine the truth other than empirical evidence, even though humans have been doing this for a long time. You are rejecting the evidence of thousands of years of human experience. This does not mean that everything that humans have believed is true, but it all can’t be false and our species has continued to survive.
No question the world is large enough for both of us, but on the other hand, 1) Humanity should be seeking the truth, and it would be very sad if we concluded that the truth does not exist, 2) If there is no truth that applies to all, or that truth is not knowable, then life is chaos and is not worth living.
The spiritual, including love is real because it is relational, and relationships are real and objective, that is knowable. However love is not physical in nature, so it cannot be not measured empirically, just as knowledge cannot be measured empirically.
The accuracy of historical documents is often determined by archeology.[quote=“Relates, post:117, topic:36642”]
You are wrong because you refuse to consider any other way to determine the truth other than empirical evidence, even though humans have been doing this for a long time.
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Why is that wrong? Also, “we have been doing it this way for a long time” is not a valid argument for continuing to do something. Using this same logic we would still have slavery and women wouldn’t be allowed to vote.
On top of that, you reject those very same experiences as it applies to religions you don’t believe in[quote=“Relates, post:117, topic:36642”]
No question the world is large enough for both of us, but on the other hand, 1) Humanity should be seeking the truth, and it would be very sad if we concluded that the truth does not exist, 2) If there is no truth that applies to all, or that truth is not knowable, then life is chaos and is not worth living.
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The point on which we disagree is that believing in something makes it true.
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That is not what I said nor what I mean. I do not believe in rejecting any evidence, but all evidence needs to be tested. You say that only “empirical” evidence can be accepted and be tested by empirical evidence. That is clearly untrue because we believe many things that are not based on empirical evidence.
This it is not wrong to accept empirical evidence where it is appropriate, as in science. It is wrong to insist on empirical evidence where it is not appropriate, as in philosophy and theology. Otherwise we will have to say that philosophy, theology, and life itself have no real purpose or meaning.
Science did not liberate people from slavery and give women the right to vote. It was philosophy and theology. Science does not tell us what humans should do, it tells us what we can do.
No, I do not believe that believing that the universe is only physical makes it so. I see ample evidence everyday to the contrary, I do not believe that just because I do not think that there is no God, that this is true.
Read my previous posts. I said that evidence needs to be verified independent of the person making the claim.[quote=“Relates, post:119, topic:36642”]
That is clearly untrue because we believe many things that are not based on empirical evidence.
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What do I believe as being true that is not supported by verifiable evidence? I don’t doubt that you are a smart guy, but I doubt that you are a mind reader.[quote=“Relates, post:119, topic:36642”]
This it is not wrong to accept empirical evidence where it is appropriate, as in science. It is wrong to insist on empirical evidence where it is not appropriate, as in philosophy and theology. Otherwise we will have to say that philosophy, theology, and life itself have no real purpose or meaning.
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That is an argument from consequences, which is a logical fallacy. Perhaps there is no objective meaning or purpose to life. You can’t reject an argument simply because you don’t like where it leads. There is no guarantee that the truth is going to be something we like.[quote=“Relates, post:119, topic:36642”]
Science did not liberate people from slavery and give women the right to vote. It was philosophy and theology. Science does not tell us what humans should do, it tells us what we can do.
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Philosophy and theology also supported slavery and the lack of women’s suffrage.[quote=“Relates, post:119, topic:36642”]
No, I do not believe that believing that the universe is only physical makes it so. I see ample evidence everyday to the contrary, I do not believe that just because I do not think that there is no God, that this is true.
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What is that evidence?