Why it is silly to look for evidence of God

[wynn]

Why it is silly to look for evidence of God:


First a few examples for introduction:


If you want to know whether there is a pair of red socks in your socks drawer, then, unless you are a kind of sock Imelda Marcos, the task is easy enough, and requires a small amount of time and effort on your part. But you can be sure beyond reasonable doubt whether there is a pair of red socks in your socks drawer or not.
You could rightfully make the claim "There are no red socks in my socks drawer."

You can also gain certainty as to whether there is a giraffe in the Central Park in New York. That would of course take some man power and time to conduct the search and secure the areas searched. But it can be done, and you could come away being certain whether there is a giraffe in the Central Park or not.
You could rightfully make the claim "There is no giraffe in the the Central Park."

By a similar principle, we can imagine we could search the space between Earth and Mars for the celestial teapot, marking and securing each cubic meter of searched space. Indeed, it would take a lot of time, effort and resoruces, but the principle of the search is essentially the same as when looking for a pair of red socks in your drawer. Given enough resources, we could claim, with certainty, whether there is a celestial teapot or not.
You could rightfully make the claim "There is no celestial teapot between Earth and Mars."


Given the usual definitions of God, however, God cannot be found by such a search principle, not even theoretically.

One of the usual definitions of God is that He is the Controller of the Universe.
This means that everything and everyone in this Universe is controlled by God. Including our efforts to find God or evidence or proof of God.
Thus we can never prove or disprove whether we and everything and everyone else are controlled or not. It is not even theoretically possible.


It is thus a mistake to look for evidence of God.

 

[Syne]

One of the usual definitions of God is that He is the Controller of the Universe.
This means that everything and everyone in this Universe is controlled by God.

Faulty premise, as I'm unfamiliar with this "usual definition" (requires siting a source) and this seems to clash with stochastic processes.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

One of the usual definitions of God is that He is the Controller of the Universe.
This means that everything and everyone in this Universe is controlled by God.

Faulty premise, as I'm unfamiliar with this "usual definition" (requires siting a source) and this seems to clash with stochastic processes.

A better analogy is that God is the Director but like all analogies it is inadequate - especially with regard to the Source of Love....

 

[Rhaedas]

Moses found God. Apparently a lot of Christians find him as well. So either you're wrong, or God can be found, but only at his choosing. So I guess it's up to him to present himself.

But then, that flies in the face of that whole free will thing, doesn't it? God's existence seems to always presents inconsistency problems.

 

[gmilam]

One of the usual definitions of God is that He is the Controller of the Universe.
This means that everything and everyone in this Universe is controlled by God. Including our efforts to find God or evidence or proof of God.
Thus we can never prove or disprove whether we and everything and everyone else are controlled or not. It is not even theoretically possible.

THIS would make life pointless. Is your god a master of puppets?

 

[wynn]

THIS would make life pointless. Is your god a master of puppets?

The body is not the alpha and omega of a man's existence.


(And I don't have a God to call "mine.")

 

[gmilam]

The body is not the alpha and omega of a man's existence.

Prove it.

And (back to your original claim) why would god want to create everything and then control it? If god controls all, that leaves nothing for us to do, learn or believe. It's all written in the script and we have no choice but to play our parts. God has become writer, director, producer, critic, ticket taker and stage grip.

 

[Syne]

The body is not the alpha and omega of a man's existence.


(And I don't have a God to call "mine.")

Why don't you make the case for an afterlife, rather than trying to make the case against whatever else you don't agree with? You cannot logically support one idea by refuting other, independent notions.

 

[wynn]

Prove it.

Do you know what you're asking for?

And (back to your original claim) why would god want to create everything and then control it? If god controls all, that leaves nothing for us to do, learn or believe. It's all written in the script and we have no choice but to play our parts. God has become writer, director, producer, critic, ticket taker and stage grip.

"Control" doesn't mean 'puppet mastery.'
It simply means that nothing happens without God's will: you desire to do something, and if God approves of it, you get to do it.

When you consider the range of things you desire to do and are able to carry out, then, obviously, you are allowed to do quite a bit.

 

[Yazata]

Why it is silly to look for evidence of God

I'm not actively looking for evidence of any god. I don't believe in gods. I do take an academic interest in beliefs in gods, in a religious-studies sense, so I'm interested in how theists justify their god-beliefs. But gods aren't a feature of my own religiosity, such as it is. Gods aren't a personal matter for me.

In order for that to change, I probably would need to have some convincing evidence that a god exists.

If you want to know whether there is a pair of red socks in your socks drawer, then, unless you are a kind of sock Imelda Marcos, the task is easy enough, and requires a small amount of time and effort on your part. But you can be sure beyond reasonable doubt whether there is a pair of red socks in your socks drawer or not.
You could rightfully make the claim "There are no red socks in my socks drawer."

Right. And that's why it's a mistake to say, like so many people do, that 'you can't prove a negative'. You can easily prove a negative if the universe of discourse is finite and manageable, like socks in a drawer. If there are six items in the drawer, and you look at them one after another and determine that none of them are red socks, then you've demonstrated that there are no red socks in the drawer, by simple enumeration.

Given the usual definitions of God, however, God cannot be found by such a search principle, not even theoretically.

Theists typically (but not universally) insist that their god isn't a part of the space-time universe at all. God isn't just one item among other items. If "he" ("she" or it) were, then god would be something like a giant super-powered space-alien. I think that most theists would say that even if we located and examined everything that the physical universe contains, at every point in space and time, we still wouldn't stumble upon their god, because we would have only searched that god's creation.

But what about a different and less physics-inspired search-principle, where somebody (or a large team of somebody's) tries out all existing (and all imaginable) religions and religious paths? Might a god be encountered, realized, merged-with or whatever at the end of at least one of them? Can we say with any certainty that all religious paths are dead ends?

One of the usual definitions of God is that He is the Controller of the Universe.
This means that everything and everyone in this Universe is controlled by God. Including our efforts to find God or evidence or proof of God.
Thus we can never prove or disprove whether we and everything and everyone else are controlled or not. It is not even theoretically possible.

That sounds like a variant on the idea that gods like to hide. Maybe gods are manipulating peoples' search for gods in such a way that gods can never be perceived or recognized by humans, even when the gods are right there alongside us. Kind of a perceptual invisibility-cloak. That remains a formal possibility, I guess. I say 'formal', because I don't take it very seriously. I don't see it as my task to eliminate every imaginary possibility except one. I've read too much science fiction to think that's even possible.

Besides, there is the existential point that even if some god really is controlling us like a puppet at every moment of our lives, we still find ourselves thrown into a situation where it at least seems to us that we have a great deal of freedom of choice. Our minds are to a large extent decision-making engines. And if most of the religious traditions are to be believed, we do have some decisions to make about religion as well.

It is thus a mistake to look for evidence of God.

I expect that many atheists and most agnostics would be sympathetic with that idea.

 

[Yazata]

Moses found God.

Or so the tradition says.

Apparently a lot of Christians find him as well.

Or they want to believe that they have. (It's kind of amazing to me how little impact their supposedly finding/encountering/experiencing the transcendent creator of universes has on most Christians' daily lives.)

So either you're wrong, or God can be found, but only at his choosing. So I guess it's up to him to present himself.

Christianity has historically had kind of a mixed-message there. On one hand, faith is supposed to be a gift of divine grace. Some theologians even have doctrines of predestination. But on the other hand, evidences of their particular god are supposed to be everywhere and there's a long tradition that non-Christians can be brought around to faith through reason and natural theology.

But then, that flies in the face of that whole free will thing, doesn't it? God's existence seems to always presents inconsistency problems.

That it does.

 

[Syne]

So I guess it's up to him to present himself.

But then, that flies in the face of that whole free will thing, doesn't it? God's existence seems to always presents inconsistency problems.

"Control" doesn't mean 'puppet mastery.'
It simply means that nothing happens without God's will: you desire to do something, and if God approves of it, you get to do it.

If human freewill is granted by a god (or even just generally considered an attribute of a divine spark) then, by extension, the collection of human freewill is what constitutes the "will of God".

 

[spidergoat]

Christians never used to think it was silly to look for evidence of God. It's only in modern times when our advancements in science have revealed his glaring absence.

The celestial teapot might have to be replaced with a better analogy, since one could theoretically search for the teapot. How about an invisible pink unicorn? There is just as much evidence for an invisible pink unicorn, and evidence that it is indeed pink, as there is of God. Therefore everything and everyone in this Universe is controlled by the invisible pink unicorn.

Anyway, wynn's reasoning is flawed. Some concepts of God can be disproven, including the Christian/ Muslim/ Jewish one, who is said to be a personal God, so he interferes with cause and effect sometimes, and that effect on the physical world can be detected. There might be a God that leaves everything alone, but why worship it?

The lesson here is that it's a mistake to believe anything that is not falsifiable.

 

[Sarkus]

Given the usual definitions of God, however, God cannot be found by such a search principle, not even theoretically.

Are you suggesting that, for these "usual definitions", God is unknowable (which would make you a strong agnostic rather than the weak agnostic you profess) or that these specific means are inappropriate for seeking evidence of such a God?

How else would you suggest one looks, if that is what one intends to do?

And surely if you state/claim that God is unknowable then you are, by implication, calling all people that (claim to) speak to God, that (claim to) know God, that say God is knowable, that they are mistaken in their interpretation of the evidence that led them to such claims?

 

[gmilam]

Do you know what you're asking for?

Evidence of something beyond our physical/material existence. You make the claim, support it.

"Control" doesn't mean 'puppet mastery.'
It simply means that nothing happens without God's will: you desire to do something, and if God approves of it, you get to do it.

By your own logic in your original post - you can't know this.

One of the usual definitions of God is that He is the Controller of the Universe.
This means that everything and everyone in this Universe is controlled by God. Including our efforts to find God or evidence or proof of God.
Thus we can never prove or disprove whether we and everything and everyone else are controlled or not. It is not even theoretically possible.

It is thus a mistake to look for evidence of God.

 

[wynn]

God's existence seems to always presents inconsistency problems.

I guess this depends on how magnanimous one is: the more magnanimous one is, the less negativity there is, the less blaming, the less suspicion.

 

[wynn]

I'm not actively looking for evidence of any god. I don't believe in gods. I do take an academic interest in beliefs in gods, in a religious-studies sense, so I'm interested in how theists justify their god-beliefs.

On the grounds of what do you believe that you 1. can adequately comprehend those justifications - ie. as they were intended; and 2. know a theistically adequate justification from an inadequate one?

In order for that to change, I probably would need to have some convincing evidence that a god exists.

What would be an example of said evidence?
A bearded old man in the sky? A glitch in the way atoms form bonds, a burning bush, a prayer answered?

But what about a different and less physics-inspired search-principle,

But why search for God at all?

What is it that drives people to "find God"?

where somebody (or a large team of somebody's) tries out all existing (and all imaginable) religions and religious paths?

This is not possible. In many paths, the moment of death is crucial, and to really "test" a path, one has to practice it at the time of one's death. Obviously, in this lifetime, one can only do this with one path. And then one doesn't come back to tell of the results to the other members of the test team ...

That sounds like a variant on the idea that gods like to hide.

That hadn't occured to me.

But I am more interested in the dispositions of seekers (theistic or atheistic ones).

What kind of outlook on oneself, life etc. is necessary in order to ask "Do you believe in God?" or "Does God exist?" -?
What kind of outlook thinks these questions are relevant?

 

[wynn]

Anyway, wynn's reasoning is flawed. Some concepts of God can be disproven, including the Christian/ Muslim/ Jewish one, who is said to be a personal God, so he interferes with cause and effect sometimes, and that effect on the physical world can be detected. There might be a God that leaves everything alone, but why worship it?

Even the Abrahamic god is not conceived as a vending machine.

The lesson here is that it's a mistake to believe anything that is not falsifiable.

What use is believing in something that is falsifiable?

 

[wynn]

Are you suggesting that, for these "usual definitions", God is unknowable (which would make you a strong agnostic rather than the weak agnostic you profess) or that these specific means are inappropriate for seeking evidence of such a God?

The latter.

How else would you suggest one looks, if that is what one intends to do?

To look at one's intentions: Why is it that one wants certainty about God? What does one hope to accomplish by having certainty about God?

Becoming aware of those intentions is, IMO, far more revealing than any "(lack of) evidence of God" that one might come across.

And surely if you state/claim that God is unknowable then you are, by implication, calling all people that (claim to) speak to God, that (claim to) know God, that say God is knowable, that they are mistaken in their interpretation of the evidence that led them to such claims?

It depends on what people mean by "knowable" and "unknowable."
From what I've seen, these terms can be taken to mean many things.

 

[wynn]

Evidence of something beyond our physical/material existence. You make the claim, support it.

You are asking for physical evidence of something non-physical?

By your own logic in your original post - you can't know this.

What do you see as being the contradiction?