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Criteria for evidence of a God.

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slowmutant
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10 Dec 2008, 10:44 am

z0rp wrote:
How about showing us something that's here that cannot possibly be explained in any way without involving a God or something of that nature? It'd be a start.


The question needs to be reworded.



Awesomelyglorious
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10 Dec 2008, 11:12 am

Orwell wrote:
I never said they were, but you evidently are not aware of what Calvinism is. Wikipedia is your friend, but to sum it up: Calvinists are Protestant Christians who believe in predestination, which rather undermines most conceptions of free will.

Calvinists are the ones who emphasize predestination, and God's sovereignty to the point where free will doesn't really exist, particularly because they are monergist. Most Christians have some notion of an "elect", but a lot of these notions really don't seem consistent and capable of giving what they want it to give.



slowmutant
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10 Dec 2008, 11:40 am

Calvinists must be a miserable lot. If you have no free will and nothing you do will ever get you into heaven, why bother with life? Dr. Greg House is a Calvinist, apparently. Suits his personality, don't you think?



Sand
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10 Dec 2008, 11:51 am

slowmutant wrote:
Calvinists must be a miserable lot. If you have no free will and nothing you do will ever get you into heaven, why bother with life? Dr. Greg House is a Calvinist, apparently. Suits his personality, don't you think?


Actually it's probably not all that bad. If you don't know what is inevitable you don't have to worry about it so you can more or less ignore it.



slowmutant
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10 Dec 2008, 12:03 pm

Sand wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Calvinists must be a miserable lot. If you have no free will and nothing you do will ever get you into heaven, why bother with life? Dr. Greg House is a Calvinist, apparently. Suits his personality, don't you think?


Actually it's probably not all that bad. If you don't know what is inevitable you don't have to worry about it so you can more or less ignore it.


Not giving a sh*t about anything is not a good way to live. Misanthropy is not good. Nihilism, fatalism, and masochism are not good.



Sand
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10 Dec 2008, 12:17 pm

slowmutant wrote:
Sand wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Calvinists must be a miserable lot. If you have no free will and nothing you do will ever get you into heaven, why bother with life? Dr. Greg House is a Calvinist, apparently. Suits his personality, don't you think?


Actually it's probably not all that bad. If you don't know what is inevitable you don't have to worry about it so you can more or less ignore it.


Not giving a sh*t about anything is not a good way to live. Misanthropy is not good. Nihilism, fatalism, and masochism are not good.


It doesn't mean you don't care, just you don't know.



slowmutant
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10 Dec 2008, 12:29 pm

I don't know, and I'm a Catholic. I wonder who started that idea of a spiritual elect.



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10 Dec 2008, 12:43 pm

slowmutant wrote:
I don't know, and I'm a Catholic. I wonder who started that idea of a spiritual elect.

I can't claim authority on this, but it seems religionists in general consider themselves of an "elite" class of people over us non-religious types.

Also - and again I'm no authority - it seems that there is a sub-class of religionists that considers itself the "Uber-Elite" because they claim the "Gifts of the Holy Spirit" and can blather on using nonsense syllables and call it "Speaking in Tongues."

Personally, I'd like to see even one of them perform an act of healing that can be measured and documented - such as regenerating a lost limb.



Awesomelyglorious
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10 Dec 2008, 12:47 pm

slowmutant wrote:
Calvinists must be a miserable lot. If you have no free will and nothing you do will ever get you into heaven, why bother with life? Dr. Greg House is a Calvinist, apparently. Suits his personality, don't you think?

Depends on the Calvinist. John Piper actually promotes a view called "Christian Hedonism". In any case, Calvinists say that people get into heaven by God's will alone, rather than man's cooperation with God's will. Calvinists bother with life to glorify God.



slowmutant
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10 Dec 2008, 12:48 pm

You keep mentioning regenerated limbs. Are you an amputee?



Awesomelyglorious
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10 Dec 2008, 12:51 pm

slowmutant wrote:
I don't know, and I'm a Catholic. I wonder who started that idea of a spiritual elect.

I think scripture has a spiritual elect, the issue is mostly just how the doctrine of election works. I think Arminians usually say that the elect were the ones God foreknew to select him. Calvinists say that God selected them. Different theologies emphasize different aspects of the Bible and use different ideas.



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10 Dec 2008, 12:54 pm

slowmutant wrote:
You keep mentioning regenerated limbs. Are you an amputee?

Among other things, yes.



Awesomelyglorious
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10 Dec 2008, 1:03 pm

Fnord wrote:
Personally, I'd like to see even one of them perform an act of healing that can be measured and documented - such as regenerating a lost limb.

Well, even if it were measured and documented, would such an act be believed too long after it occurred? I mean, Christians will argue that the Bible is the documentation of this. Future generations will likely just see the occurrence as just a re-emergence of the Christian myth, and a number of apologists for other religions and more dedicated atheists will insist a hoax had occurred.



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10 Dec 2008, 1:05 pm

Fnord wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Thus, the notion that a deity could be proven is nonsensical, we can argue that certain facts or arguments point in favor of such a being, but few would be considered proof.

I respectfully disagree.

If the Biblical Jesus suddenly appeared standing next to me, spoke to me directly, identified Himself, and healed all my afflictions (except for my Aspieness - it's not an affliction to me) right there on the spot, then I would call Him "My Lord, My King, and My Saviour" to His face.

If such a thing happened to you, would that be sufficent proof?

No, I'm not arguing for the existance of the Biblical Jesus, only offering what I consider could be sufficient evidence.


Actually it seems to me that such a demonstration of violating causality, the law of conservation of mass, and the third law of thermodynamics in a way that generates probabilities on the order of 1:infinity minus X like that would be sufficient evidence for most atheists.

The problem is that theists can't seem to find anything with that sort of weight. In fact they can't even seem to find anything that begins to equal a single point of the above demonstration.

The spontaneous creation of macro scale atomic mass without energy conversion alone would be sufficient evidence for most.

[edit] I'm disappointed no one pointed out I meant the first law of thermodynamics not the third.


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Last edited by Fraya on 10 Dec 2008, 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Orwell
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10 Dec 2008, 1:06 pm

slowmutant wrote:
Sand wrote:
slowmutant wrote:
Calvinists must be a miserable lot. If you have no free will and nothing you do will ever get you into heaven, why bother with life? Dr. Greg House is a Calvinist, apparently. Suits his personality, don't you think?


Actually it's probably not all that bad. If you don't know what is inevitable you don't have to worry about it so you can more or less ignore it.


Not giving a sh*t about anything is not a good way to live. Misanthropy is not good. Nihilism, fatalism, and masochism are not good.

This is not a correct understanding of Calvinism.


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10 Dec 2008, 1:09 pm

Fnord wrote:
A direct, one-to-one, face-to-face meeting between myself and God, plus a minor miracle or two (such as regenerating somebody's missing limb).


I'll drink to that :) . But also, a demonstration before thousands of people of a flagrant violation of physical law. Such as a mountain seperating from its base and levitating in mid air. Or a voice thundering down from the sky......