As for proving energy exists, how about turning on a light switch. I'm not sure why you would pose such a strange question. Energy can be generated, utilized and measured predictably. The effects of introducing or depleting energy can be observed directly under laboratory controls. There is no way to doubt energy's existence. 'God' on the other hand cannot be observed, measured, studied, or just known to exist in any way other than through often contradictory and emotional testimonials.
Prove to me that God exists
by CinemaBlend 257 Replies latest watchtower bible
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darkuncle29
This was an interesting thread to read. I think it is sad that a discusion of ideas and concepts has to include personal barbs. IMO, the opponents to the "energy" discusion, I don't think you guys are argueing for the polar opposite of each other. I think it is miscomunication along conceptual lines perhaps that is leading to the percieved polarity in the discusion.
I think what oldsoul is saying--and I could be wrong--is that all that we are discusing has names and labels. The names and labels were not asigned by the universe, the earth, the sun, or ???; the names and labels were assigned by us humans. They are human concepts for us to use in relating to whatever it is that we are describing, be it temperature, electricity, ect. I think it would help us and science in general if we would just remember that what ever we give a label to, is more than the label that we give it.
Same goes for God. We can compile alist of all the things that God "Is", and the list would be inadequite. Do a list for the universe...the same. One for energy...the same.
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OldSoul
darkuncle29: I think what oldsoul is saying--and I could be wrong--is that all that we are discusing has names and labels. The names and labels were not asigned by the universe, the earth, the sun, or ???; the names and labels were assigned by us humans. They are human concepts for us to use in relating to whatever it is that we are describing, be it temperature, electricity, ect. I think it would help us and science in general if we would just remember that what ever we give a label to, is more than the label that we give it.
darkuncle29 gets it...
For the rest of the contenders here: Have you ever wondered whether religion may be a selective pressure on the species, and nothing more? It would take millenia for the outcomes of such pressures to be seen, right? Are there not examples of a path not taking the "best" course to arrive at its eventual end?
TS, you refer to religion as a disease. I know you mean that figuratively, but do you know what the eventual impacts to the species will be from the existence of belief in the unseen? If not, how can you determine whether the impact will eventually be good or bad?
darkuncle29: I think it is miscomunication along conceptual lines perhaps that is leading to the percieved polarity in the discusion.
Polarity seems to be the current goal in our society. While, in my opinion, on almost any topic you bring up you would be hard pressed to find any two people who were truly opposite in their viewpoint. The "sides" are nearly infinite. For instance, people talk about how atheists generally are and how Christians or theists generally are. In my opinion, in general individual people do not fit generalities. I've never met Norm, although I have read about that average dude my entire life.
Have you ever met Norm?
Respectfully,
OldSoul -
tetrapod.sapien
Tetrapod.Sapien: I asked for proof that energy exists. Have you any?
funkyderek already gave you the answer that the debate needed to continue, several pages ago:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/91573/1546954/post.ashx#1546954
he shows it's based on reality (also aptly brought to your attention by peacefulpete), and you keep turning around and saying "no" it is based on consensus (polarity for anyone?). and then to make matters worse, you keep bringing it up like it hasn't already been answered, and refusing to answer successive questions based on that. do you want us to admit that there is no video tape of "energy" coming out of the closet and shaking hands with several scientists at Princeton? yes, you are right, there is no such video tape. SOLIPSISM alert!
funkyderek has already shown you that it is not an article of faith and it is not based on some magical science community consensus. and as i said several pages ago: UNLIKE RELIGION. you keep bringing it up like you have a concrete point to make, yet in the end, it is really nothing but a metaphor of solipsism. so, NO, you are not going to have many people "admitting" that there is no proof for energy, because that is simply untrue. you are talking philosophy, not science. you want people to say that at the end of the day, the amount of proof for energy is equal to the amount of proof for god? that we accept energy as an article of faith because it is described by scientists and not priests? no. we have already demonstrated the fallacy of your argument. it's an interesting metaphor, but really nothing more. jeepers. within the framework of solipsism, how can we prove that anything exists, including matter??!! according to this sort of thinking, how can we be sure about anything? does E=mc 2 mean nothing to a solipsist? i guess not.
and even if the metaphor was equal and true, as you say, what would it prove? what would it show as per this debate? nothing. i already showed you that any successive arguments that you could mount, if it were true, would probably be non sequiturs. what evidence could possibly be forthcoming from you getting someone to say what you want them to say? what is an illustration going to show? that solipsism trumps reality?
TS, you refer to religion as a disease. I know you mean that figuratively, but do you know what the eventual impacts to the species will be from the existence of belief in the unseen? If not, how can you determine whether the impact will eventually be good or bad?
i'm sorry, but do you? i mean it socially, not figuratively. are you talking about evolution?
religion will probably only impact evolution genotypically in terms of death. in other words, in only the genes it has deleted from the pool by means of war and other crimes. socially and culturally, religion has an impact on memes, not genes. at the most it is phenotypic, not genotypic. so in terms of how it has affected the gene pool genotypically, who knows? and who can know? who can know how a meteor impact or a disease affects a gene pool that is not being observed? and socially? it has altered the meme pool of our species in very sad, and disgusting ways. hence, this whole debate.
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tetrapod.sapien
There is little indication that other species that share our planet operate on anything more than physical principles. Other species really demonstrate no interest in scientific endeavors to comprehend the unseen at all.
(sighs and throws arms up) That's nice for them. unfortunately, the era of the great african apes (of which we were a part), is long over. hopefully, someday religion will go the way of Lucy and her family.
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Podiatrist
Energy can be generated, utilized and measured predictably. The effects of introducing or depleting energy can be observed directly under laboratory controls.
Hm, actually energy cannot be generated only transformed, perhaps you wanted to say that power can be generated which is true.
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Evanescence
Ok a thing that may help is for posters to say why they don't believe in god.
Is it because of science? if so what has science proven (please answer in simple language I am absolutly hopeless at science!)
Or a personal experience?
Or the fact that the whole thing sounds stupid!
This might help in the debate...
Evanescence
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Abaddon
Evan
Ok a thing that may help is for posters to say why they don't believe in god.
They have been; no evidence is the reason most don't believe in god.
I know it's awfully unreasonable for us not to believe in something that can't be proved, but there you go.
I can, for example, prove I exist in a court of law. I would not be able to prove god exists in a court iof law. I could find dozens of scientific ways of determinining my reality in laboratories, but there has not been one experiment designed yet that can determine the existence of god.
Now, if we have to be careful with our phrasing, I'd put it, for me, this way;
In the greater reality I perceive things that exist within that reality can be measured, perceived, detected, or otherwise verified as having an existence in that reality. Within that reality god is not verifiable as having an existence in that reality by the methods normally used to determine existence within that reality.
Why is god in this context undetectable?
- This might not be a 'true' reality; who gives a " " ? How can I tell? Why should I care?, this 'seems' real and we have no 'tools' to determine the question one way or the other.
- There might not be experiments that can detect god yet; but then, there might not be experiments that detect the tooth fairy or Buhhda yet. I don't alter my life as a contingency plan for New Scientist announcing the "Pillow Test" that verifies the existence of tooth fairies.
- 'God' isn't something you can prove as it doesn't exist in any coherent, actual form, but is rarther a virtual concept held within minds to such an extent it gains a reality to the possesor of that mind.
- 'God' is just another word for 'evolution' and other aspects of the naturalistic process given a name, like 'Mother Nature', or 'Old Father Time'. It is an anthropomorphicism.
- Or god may have decided to make himself unprovable. IF god did decide to make humself unprovable, and we can suffer harm from not believing in something that cannot be proved, then I want nothing to do with such an entity. It is too far removed from any morality I could endorse to be worthy of respect let alone worship. You don't create intelligent life and then piss around playing silly games so they (reasonably) don't believe in you, and then punish them for (reasonably) not believing in you.
But there seem to be people in this thread who expect 'us' to disprove whatever beliefs 'they' might have, rather than understanding it is the person who makes a claim that something IS who is responsible for proving it. The false logic of this is easily illustrated.
Boogo-Hewyap lives in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. Fascinating chap to talk to once you get used to the penis gourd and the bone through the nose.
He and his tribe believe in Abik-Hadtak, creator of all, who created man from his vomit. He laughs at the Christian Missionarys; they cannot prove that their god man actually came back to life. He is very glad he has Abik-Hadtak caring for him and his tribe.
When questioned about Abik-Hadtak, and asked how he knows he is real, he says his heart and mind tell him, as the hearts and mninds of his forefathers told them of this truth. When someone from outside his tribe ask how they may come to know of Abik-Hadtak, he tells them that Abik-Hadtak is a great hunter, and will only be found by those he wants to find him. He will laugh and say "My fathers and their fathers all knew this to be true as I know it to be true, and you want me to bring god on a plate and serve him to you so you might know him? I ask you stranger, can you show me Abik-Hadtak is not watching us now?"
I think most people would agree a neolithic tribesman with a bone through their nose is not really in a apsotion to say, "I believe this, show me I am wrong" and have every one believe in Abik-Hadtak just because they can't disprove Abik-Hadtak.
The same applies to people making similar claims in 21st Century cultures without bones through their noses. The fact THEY believe they are right is irrelevent; Boogo-Hewyap believes HE is right too.
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hmike
the person who makes a claim that something IS who is responsible for proving it.
As this statement keeps popping up, I'd like to point out that this thread was not started by any deist claiming the existence of God. It was started with the challenge, "Prove to me that God exists." This implies to me that the original statement comes from the negative position--that God DOES NOT exist--for people generally do not ask for proof of something they already believe, which is why I replied with, "Can you prove God does not exist?" which received a chilly response from some.
From the beginning, I didn't think this was a good title. We can never prove the existence/non-existence of God in a formal sense--using a premise and statements that lead to a conclusion--because we would never agree on a premise. This is proof more in the sense of what happens in a trial, where various types of evidence can be presented, including personal testimony. The objective in court is not to prove an assertion to all people, but only to persuade a judge or jury. Each individual has her/his own unique way of processing the evidence, and what is convincing to one is not to another, as anyone who has served on a deadlocked jury could attest to. So, as I suggested way back at the start, it would be better to state something like, "Convince me God exists" or "Persuade me God exists" because we are dealing with one individual to whom the presentation of evidence has to be tailored.
This is also why I brought up the issue of accepting the possibility that God exists. It's like a court case, where the prosecuting attorney needs to show opportunity, because if the accused could not have committed the crime, there is no case. So first, I would want to determine if the individual accepts the possibility that God exists, because that has to be established first. Those of you who left JW, think about it, did you suddenly turn from wholly believing the WT to not believing? No, you went through a process that involved accepting or entertaining the possibility that the WT was wrong. Now this part of the process may have been very short or long, but it did happen--it had to. No rational person would believe something they consider to be impossible. So, if a person does not even consider the existence of God to be possible, the starting point has to be establishing the possibility. If the person does accept the possibility, but needs evidence, then you have a different starting point.
As I understood it, the intent of CB was for us to present evidence to HIM (or HER) for his (her) personal consideration. I never found out what the starting point was for CB. Personally, I don't engage in "cold calls."
I think I'm just approaching it from a different perspective than most, which is why my statements received a harsh response.
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tetrapod.sapien
hey hmike, thanks for dropping by again.
a good part of this thread has actually been a debate over who has the onus of "proof" that god(s) exist. the reason why this was the case, is because we were trying to find a common ground to start the debate from. like you say, we need an initial agreement. if we can agree who has the onus, then the folks in the positive position can start offering up different arguments. another big part of the debate has been about implicit assertions smuggled into said arguments, that god already exists. this is another attempt to find a common ground. an atheist really cannot respond to an argument, in any logical way, when an assertion about god's existence has been smuggled into it, since an atheist lacks a belief in that god anyways.
i like what you said about "convincing" or "persuading" one that god exists. it's true, that's really what it boils down to. unfortunately, this will not be good enough for most atheists either. after all, that is how we ended up as JWs in the first place. and i think we can all agree, that was a mistake. for such an important topic, proof really is what's required.
cheers,
TS