plaetton:

You keep going in circles repeating the very same false logic.

Let me give another example.
I learn a lot by observing how little children deal with simple issues.

Just last Sunday, I held out my closed palm to my 3yr old niece, and told her that there was a cookie in it.
She quickly pried open my palms, and behold, there was no cookie inside. With a dissapointed face, she looked at me and said, " no cookie".
I insisted that there was cookie inside my now open palm. She looked at it again, then looked at me again , a bit confused, the she shouted " No cookie".

She demonstrated that in as much as she wanted to BELIEVE me, had FAITH in me, yet she saw no cookie in my palm, therefore, she does not BELIEVE that I had a cookie in my palm.

This is basically analogous to the atheist's position on the existence of god.

Now, I want to ask you if you honestly believe that my 3yr old niece needed FAITH to boldly declare that there was no cookie in my palm?

InesQor:


Having used all the possible senses that can be used to check out a cookie (sight, touch and maybe smell; maybe even taste, if she checked for tiny crumbs with her tongue in a desperate bid to believe) in order to ascertain the presence or absence of the cookie, your niece concluded there was none.

To broadly apply your analogy to the atheist's position on the existence of God, we need to agree on what the possible senses are - for detecting God's presence or absence. What have you tried (like your niece did)?

plaetton:

You keep going in circles repeating the very same false logic.

Let me give another example.
I learn a lot by observing how little children deal with simple issues.

Just last Sunday, I held out my closed palm to my 3yr old niece, and told her that there was a cookie in it.
She had faith , she'd get the cookie

She quickly pried open my palms, and behold, there was no cookie inside. With a dissapointed face, she looked at me and said, " no cookie".
I insisted that there was cookie inside my now open palm. She looked at it again, then looked at me again , a bit confused, the she shouted " No cookie".

She demonstrated that in as much as she wanted to BELIEVE me, had FAITH in me, yet she saw no cookie in my palm, therefore, she does not BELIEVE that I had a cookie in my palm.

This is basically analogous to the atheist's position on the existence of god.

Now, I want to ask you if you honestly believe that my 3yr old niece needed FAITH to boldly declare that there was no cookie in my palm?

plaetton:


I am glad that you asked.

Every available sense that I have tells me of the ABSENCE of god in my sensory universe.
There also have been no detection of god,nor even his footprints , with any instruments.
There have been no mathematical equations arriving at, pointing at any extraneous force or manipulator or creator of our universe.

Based on these, I am fully competent to declare that there is no cookie, I mean god, in our universe, in our reality.

Now, I don't know if there are other universes, and certainly not competent to pontificate about who lives there.
God, as far as my common sense observations, does not exist in my universe.
I don't know, and I don't really care what other universe he may live.

InesQor:


Your response is clear, thanks, but I have a couple of other questions and comments.

(1) Do you think the sensory aspect of the universe is the only possible one with which one can appropriate all that the universe has to offer? A loose example; I imagine that a man born blind will have a different perception of things from one who became blind, and as well as from one with bad eyesight and finally one with perfect eyesight. Is there any faint possibility that you may be missing out on some or all of the "kind" of sensory perception at which God may be detected (assuming for a brief moment that this is plausible)?

(2) Detecting objects with instruments is a tricky business because at the end of the observation, we still default to our five senses. Until instruments can make full-blown intelligent deductions by themselves, I think instruments are only an enhancement. Maybe they might even be an obstruction in some cases.

(3) Touche about the mathematical equations, but in my profession I know for a fact that there are very many things in our world that mathematics and physics have modeled successfully and yet they are not at all understood. Thus, modeling a phenomenon does not even mean that it will be understood by the observer. On the other hand, some things have just proven stubborn to model and there has not yet been any success with it - this does not mean that they do not exist.

(4) The part I'm in agreement with you is that within your common sensory perception, God cannot be directly detected. But again, there is a "what if". (See point 1). Is there any chance whatsoever that your sensory perception (the 5 senses as we know them) cannot account for an appreciation of all experiences in the universe?

What do you think?

plaetton:


I am glad that we are following this sensibly and logically.

Of course, we know that our senses have limations, and therefore that there are likely many things beyond our sensory grasps.

plaetton:

But whether through our physical senses or through the agency of instruments, our senses give the final stamp of what is real and what is not.

Our senses remain the supreme arbiter of our reality. In fact, the only arbiter of our reality.
What else is there to rely upon?

plaetton:

Therefore, anything that falls beyond the periphery or preview of our sensory observation and analysis SIMPLY does not exist in our reality.
We are free to imagine, speculate and discuss in the abstract terms about what might lie beyond our sensory universe, as long as we keep them in proper contexts as abstract Notions.

It takes faith and magic to automatically convert an abstract notion to real.

This is why we atheists insists that god, an abstract notion, is created in the human mind.
That explains why we are always debating whether it's real or not.

InesQor:

Yes


Our senses being the final stamp on reality - this creates a little problem. We can't all have the same senses fine-tuned to the same degree of accuracy (like the blindness example I earlier gave). This means that based on your sense, your perception of reality might be totally false but you'll have to accept it as the final stamp of what reality is. Remember the "dress is blue/black or white/orange" viral phenomenon that broke the interwebs? i.e. "The Dress (Viral Phenomenon)" on Wikipedia [for some doggone reason, Nairaland won't let me post the link properly] and #TheDress #DressGate on Twitter. Did you follow the conversation? What colours did YOU see? I and my best friend - who each have great eyesight - saw different things.


But stuff like the DressGate example just go to show how fickle our sensory perception is. Your reality cannot even be certainly corroborated by another agent, so it cannot be considered objective enough for proper analysis. Thus, I am inclined to accept that sensory perception is not sufficient for a thorough observation of experiences in the universe.

Unless you are saying that each person's reality is independent of other people's perception of THAT reality i.e. reality is malleable and subjective. i.e. anybody can make any claims about their own reality and their claims cannot be evaluated because their reality depends on their subjective sensory experience.

Is this your take?

plaetton:

No.
I am not referring to individual perceptions of reality, but generally agreed upon phenomena.
For example, gravity.
We can't touch it, feel, see or smell it. But we are all subject to it's effects.
We have come to generally agree that gravity is a PULL.
If in the future we discover that gravity is a PUSH, our perception will change according, but its reality will remain.
Therefore, our senses are all we have ever had to define reality.
I ask again, what else do we have to rely upon ?

InesQor:


Well, the truth is that the effects of gravity are imposed on all and sundry, whether we "sense" it or not - so I feel this is a totally different argument. Even the ancient man who imagined that the world is flat and we can fall off its edges, experienced gravity and he was subjected to it. Gravity is a law that applies to all subjects with its pull, regardless of whatsoever object we're considering.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if your argument is that we can sense the effects of gravity but we can't sense the effects of God then you may be wrong because of this: how exactly do you KNOW that we don't already sense this God-effect in some way or another AND that we have since taken it for granted without understanding it (much the same way our antediluvian man took it for granted that everything must fall right back to the ground after it rises in a trajectory, and he gave it not too much further thought)?

plaetton:


I am not saying that we sense gravity, but that we are automatically subject to its effect, and generally agree about it existence and it's measurable effects. If we discover that it is a Push rather than a pull, our notions of it will change, but it's reality remains.
The point I am trying to make here is that something that is universally self evident like gravity does not depend on our perceptions of it. It exists, independent of whatever perceptions of it. Funny enough, there exists no religion dedicated to Gravity.

Why, on the other hand, have we been debating the existence or not, of god since humans began to ponder the mysteries of existence?

InesQor:


Well, the debates are because unlike gravity, people have varying perceptions of what "God" means (if so exists), and how we can participate in any experience with God. Some (i.e. pantheists) will say there is nothing more to expect because we are already participating with deity, since we are agents within the Universe. They will say we are already involved in that reality, and our very existence is a part of the participation.

Whereas the effects of gravity have been tagged and given a name, and even studied in extraterrestrial spaces including the moon and other planets, we are still hung up on defining "God" to even start with, let alone observing the entity or phenomenon. This is another reason it will be difficult to apply that gravity-reasoning in this case.

KingEbukasBlog:




This is funny tho . Giving an example coined to suite your stance . How about both of you staring at a wrapped jar .You insist there's no cookie , she insists there is . Both of you have FAITH .

Faith is the belief, confidence or trust in a view(in this case) despite the absence of proof

Its a wrapped jar -(no clues to provide proof , what clue do you need - the jar's label)

She insists there is a cookie , you say no - its a wrapped jar , why do you both have confidence that there's or there's no cookie? Because you have faith

Why do both of stand firm on your views

Niece's reasons

-Your mum went to buy groceries and mum promised to buy her cookies on her way home
-She saw mum bring out jars from the grocery bag , since mum promised her cookies one is obviously a jar of cookie
etc etc
Your reasons

-Mum's sister has a kid who loves gem and they are coming over that day . She could have wrapped the gem-jar-gift , to give to her sister's kid
- Your niece has tooth pains and mum wouldn't buy cookies cos they are sugary

etc etc

Possibilities
-Mum got groundnuts for her instead as she remembered her niece has tooth ache
-Mum stopped at her sis' house gave her sister's son the gem-jar-gift
-Mum wrapped the gem-jar-gift so she can easily give it to her sis' son when they come around
-Mum bought the cookie but wrapped the jar when she got home as she remembered her niece has tooth ache . So your niece cant know
etc etc etc


So this example applies to christians and atheists >>(you and your niece)... you have your reasons and well-thought out possibilities .
Christians have reasons like
-personal experiences
-supernatural intervention
-miracles
-intelligent design of life forms , something can't come from nothing
etc

atheists have reasons like
-why doesn't God intervene in their own cases
-Religion is a tool employed to control the masses
-miracles dont happen , its mere luck
-its not a design , its modification during a gradual natural process
etc

According to KoloOyinbo , you need faith - yours could be true or not . KoloOyinbo believes God could be that "wrapped jar"

Remember , Faith is the belief, confidence or trust in a view(in this case) despite the absence of proof

But how true are your reasons . Do you have proof God does not exist ? Are Christians lying to and deceiving themselves ?

As simple as this is - you have views and reasons not proof .

Kay17:
@Plaetton,

You mean a collective sensing?

KoloOyinbo:


Hi.

Do you know in Port Harcourt (Pitawaka) - the corner of Obasanjo Way and Worlu Street used to be called 'ManMusWack'! I used to stay in the Landmark hotel within 2 minutes walk of it!

Most people define Atheist as someone who does not believe in God. This is most usually extended beyond the Agnostic position to imply a belief that God does not exist.

I did not call Atheism a religion but merely suggested that while the Agnostic can rationally support their stance a Theist or Atheist both ultimately rely on FAITH in their position. In this they are much more similar than either side would like or care to admit.

I am a Theist but only admit to rationality in the Agnostic position. As a rational human I often joke that -

I pray to God to make me an Agnostic! So if i told you that i believe in evolution, that life evolved, that there is evidence to back up my beliefs would you tell me that my beliefs are based on faith? If i said prehistoric animals existed at least 650 million years ago before Noah's Ark would you tell me what am saying is based on faith? Noah Ark and the bible or Prehistoric animals and evolution. I know which one makes more sense to me

jayriginal:


DeepSight is a member of this forum. He used to be a deist. You might enjoy discussing with him.