What If God Was Real And Manifested Proving It?

[AmazonQueen]

Weren't the Goths Arrian Christians?

Said lecturer read out early Christian writings they weren't fans of gladiator games.

The empire converted to Christianity before the Goths turned up but carried on with the games. Took "barbarians" to end them.

 

[Zardnaar]

The empire converted to Christianity before the Goths turned up but carried on with the games. Took "barbarians" to end them.

Part of that was also political necessity.

To many pagans to just impose a theocracy on them.

Iirc I don't think Christians were the majority until the 5th century.

Last pagan public temple lasted until 6th century 200+ years after official conversion.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

We have come from an era of very little information into one of too much information. When there is very little information available, there will be much less misinformation. As the amount of information increases, so will the amount of misinformation. Add to that the increase in the number of people who have access to lots of information and the means to disseminate it.

I gave what you said some thought and in a way I believe you're right. Very little information but is that by design? I keep getting the nagging feeling that there is a lot more to the story then what they want us to know. Hence why I think there is a lot of misinformation out there despite having very little information. I hope that makes sense.

 

[warpus]

Nothing so, it'd just be a very... human thing to do, to care about whether the people have faith in you. Likely why in the religions we commonly think of the god does care, enough to punish you if you don't. In christianity, for example, the single prerequisite is to have faith (it's not even of importance what kind of faith, as if it is the same for everyone who has that).

That's why it's a flawed point of view though, IMO - It's the human view, and what would humans know about gods? We're just making it up as we go along.

 

[RobAnybody]

So there is no way for something to prove it is a god?

I don't think there is. But there's a certain threshold where it just doesn't matter. Even if it's not an actual god, but it's smiting whole cities & turns "unbelievers" (i.e. those who denounce it) into atoms by a wave of a hand, then... well, what difference does it make? I don't think debating "is it a god" serves any purpose. It may as well be treated as one.

Revelations chapter 13 verses 16 & 17

It's Revelation, singular, fwiw. People do this all the time: make it plural. Just a minor pet peeve of mine. No offense meant. I'm an atheist, so not trying to get all Biblical on you, more just OCD on you.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

But I'll be honest, I haven't dug deep into what the real purpose of cancel culture is so I'm open to counter arguments.

Didn't cancel culture become a widespread expression when various Hollywood celebrities were exposed and prosecuted for various sex crimes going back decades, and suddenly they're basically blacklisted? (not saying they shouldn't have been if they were guilty)

It doesn't even have to be Hollywood; there's a former CBC host, Jian Gomeshi, whose career came to a screeching halt when his history of wrongdoings became public.

So from this perspective, cancel culture is ridding the wider culture of the presence of people who have committed crimes involving sex that may or may not include a racial element.

Then there are people who are "canceled" due to their political views. That's something that varies from country to country. Some people aren't allowed to air their views in public here in Canada because the views they want to air are in contravention of our hate laws.

Misinformation isn't a good thing to spread. We are facing the possibility of an outbreak of measles in the UK because of misinformation about the MMR vaccine. Its not cancel culture trying to stop that or misinformation about covid vaccines or mobile phone masts, its doctors and responsible scientists and media.

I haven't noticed anybody here being silenced by cancel culture although there are numerous complaints about it in the predominantly right-wing media. Almost like its the right who are the snowflakes who can't stand criticism.

I really wish the word "snowflake" wouldn't be used as a pejorative.

We probably already can have some decent cloning tech, so perhaps a few people have cloned themselves for organ harvesting. It could have been worse, being born many decades before you did would mean you'd be near death now, so for others there is some hope ^^

Sliders did an episode about that in the '90s.

 

[Plotinus]

Oh, I didn't think I was talking about definitions. I was talking about claims of fact.


Right, it is. Because the necessity of God hasn't been demonstrated one way or the other. Any argument that rests on the necessity of God must first demonstrate that necessity.

Yes, but I’m not talking about arguments (like Anselm’s, or Descartes’) that appeal to divine necessity as a proof of God’s existence. When I mentioned the traditional belief that God’s existence is necessary I was just pointing out a similarity, to a classical theist, between claims about God and mathematical claims.

It’s important to recognise, though, that saying that God’s existence is necessary is not to say that God exists. It is simply to say that if God exists, God does so necessarily. For comparison, I know that if 83846182+6937292=94726274 then this is a necessary truth, but I don’t know off-hand whether it actually is true or not (though it very probably is not, because I just hit the keys randomly). Similarly, I know that if the God of classical theism exists then that is a necessary truth, because it’s part of the definition of that God that God’s existence is a necessary truth, but I don’t know whether it actually is true (though I think it very probably is not). So a theist and an atheist can agree perfectly happily that God is defined as a necessarily existing being, if they’re both willing to work with that definition, though they disagree over whether that definition is actually instantiated.

Correct, which is why conversations about supposedly-spiritual or divine phenomena between someone who is a believer and someone who isn't a believer always collapse, because the believer can never demonstrate the truth of their foundational assertion (that God, for example, exists).

As I say though, I don’t think this is a “foundational assertion”. Traditionally in Christianity God’s existence is not assumed but is supposedly demonstrated on the basis of other claims. Now the supposed demonstrations may not be very good, at least to our eyes, of course, but that’s just because they’re not very good arguments, not because they assume what they purportedly prove.

Oh. Yes, definitely. "Deism", in addition to being thinly-disguised agnosticism, is intellectual judo. It sidesteps having to answer the question of whether God exists and so allows everyone to move ahead with the important work. This is one of the reasons the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state are so important. If we agree on those, we don't need to agree on whether or not God exists to coexist as a polity.

I’m not sure why you say this about deism. Historically, deism was a hyper-rational form of Christianity which sought to eradicate all elements that couldn’t be rationally demonstrated. That left only God’s existence and moral truths (supposedly), so that’s all that deists believed. Of course deism proved to be a stepping stone to atheism, because people soon decided that God’s existence can’t be rationally proved either.

Merely saying that an experience has a divine object isn't neutral, it's interpretive.

Yes, but saying that it appears to have a divine object is neutral, isn’t it?

If it's not, then it's not evidence, it's just a claim. If it's not testable or repeatable, then you're just saying "trust me, I know what I saw."

Yes, that’s weak evidence, at least if the person saying it isn’t very trustworthy. But it’s still evidence!

E can't be evidence for H at the same time H is evidence for E. That's circular reasoning.

It certainly would be, but I didn’t say that! I said that E is evidence for H iff the probability of E given H is higher than the probability of E given not-H. That’s simply the definition of evidence.

By "flying saucer", do you mean extraterrestrial aircraft or spacecraft? Regardless, someone saying they saw a flying sauce is a claim that flying saucers exist, not evidence that they exist. Evidence has to be verifiable, or it's not evidence.


Given how many claims of flying saucers have been debunked, it's not even marginally more probable. The history of claims of flying saucers being demonstrated as accurate is zero. A cynic would say that a claim of flying saucers is by definition unlikely. That's where the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" thing comes from. I'm not exactly that cynical. I actually think life on other planets seems probable to me, based on the evidence we have, I just don't think any of them have ever been here.

I don’t agree. I think that the probability of someone thinking they saw a flying saucer is higher if there actually are flying saucers than it would be if there are not, unless one knows for certain that every single putative flying saucer sighting is mistaken. And we don’t actually know that for certain, though it is extremely probable, which is why such claims are very poor evidence.

The difference between strong (or "conclusive") evidence and weak evidence is whether or not it's been corroborated. In journalism, something that has only 1 source might be unpublishable, because it's too weak. In science, experimental results that cannot be replicated have to be disregarded until the problem is resolved. In criminal law (at least in countries where the burden of proof is on the accuser) an accusation that can't be supported by evidence has to be tossed out. In each case, weak evidence can be enough to get some distance into the process: A journalist sees enough to keep investigating; a scientific paper that breaks new ground gets published in a journal; an accusation of criminal conduct is investigated by police and gets in front of a judge. And, in each case, we rely on the skill and professionalism of the investigators, and sometimes we get hoodwinked.

Right, and that’s really exactly what I’m saying. Though bear in mind that non-corroborated evidence could be reasonably strong too. For example, if I’m in the company of an expert herpetologist and we see a snake, and the herpetologist assures me that the snake is not venomous, I could reasonably take her assertion as good evidence for its non-venomosity even though I’m not in any position to corroborate it and if the snake disappears into the undergrowth and is never seen again. But of course the evidence would be stronger if there were other herpetologists around to corroborate it, or if we captured the snake for further study.

 

[Plotinus]

Just briefly again!

How is this different than saying, for example: "A letter I got sent, signed Superman, would more probably be sent to me if Superman exists"? In both cases, the recipient chooses to believe the letter has meaning due to Superman, whose existence is entirely unrelated to the letter. What is related to the letter signed "by Superman" is that there is an idea of Superman, so you may think he can send stuff to you for tenuous reason (someone signed the name on a letter).

The case is slightly different. Receiving a letter apparently from Superman is very very weak evidence that Superman exists. But we are (almost) certain that Superman doesn’t exist because we know the history of his creation as a fictional being. It’s possible, though staggeringly unlikely, that there really is a Superman who just happens by coincidence to be real. But this isn’t really the case with God, who may well not be real, but as far as we know wasn’t invented as a consciously fictional being as Superman was.

That is, I am afraid, also arbitrary. We simply cannot say anything meaningful - as Protagoras noted - about gods, including whether anything would be of higher probability if they existed. In summary, I think that in these specific arguments you give value to connections which are verbally charged (loose associations due to linguistic or cultural tie), and not logical.

I’m actually very sympathetic to this view. I agree that we don’t really know what phenomena we’d be more likely to see given the existence (or non-existence) of God, and this is why evidentially-based reasoning on this subject, whether it’s in support of theism or atheism, is rarely convincing. It doesn’t follow, though, that claims of the form “If there were/weren’t a God we’d be more likely to see X” are just arbitrary, because we might be able to give reasons why we think X would be more likely under that scenario. But yes, such reasons could never be certain, because we do not have the luxury of being able to examine alternate realities which are known to contain Gods and which could show us what to expect if our universe contained one.

 

[amadeus]

I believe soon because of the convergence of so many events predicted in the bible coming to fruition today.

One world monetary system - which the WEF wants desperately with digital currency

One world religion - Yuval Noah Hariri & the Pope have been championing this (unprecedented to bring all the worlds religions into one)

Wars, and rumors of wars with the world breaking up into distinct camps

The cooperation of three nations that historically have been enemies (Russia, Turkey, & Iran)

Uptick in the frequency of earthquakes, storms, floods, fires, and other natural disasters

Cancel culture - calling what is good evil, and what is evil good.

There are more; hardening of peoples' hearts towards one another, having deranged thinking contrary to what traditionally was sound, the list goes on

But most, if not all of, these things can be cited for a different time period or have completely plausible and alternate explanations.

A world under one currency? Roman coins. The gold standard. The British pound at the height of its empire.

Wars and blocs of alliances? The Napoleonic alliances. The Axis. The Central Powers. NATO. The Warsaw Pact.

Russia, Iran and Turkey cooperating? Perfectly reasonable when there is both a power disparity and all three’s strategic goals are pointed in different directions—Russia and Turkey were at loggerheads over the Balkans, which was then more geopolitically significant then than it is now.

Fires, floods, earthquakes? Doubt it. Depends on what you measure and how.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Fires, floods, earthquakes?

Fires and floods are the new normal here. Wildfires kill the trees that are helping to hold the soil stable, and when the rain comes there are floods and mudslides.

 

[amadeus]

Fires and floods are the new normal here. Wildfires kill the trees that are helping to hold the soil stable, and when the rain comes there are floods and mudslides.

But if you go and look at some of the most consequential disasters to human life since recorded history, many of them didn’t even occur in the last century. 6th c. Antioch is a bit far back for me to go to collect evidence to say I’m going to see the end times in my lifetime.

I’m not saying natural disasters in Canada are good, just that they don’t convince me that we are nearing an imminent eschatological happening.

 

[Plotinus]

I just want to clarify, for fear of misunderstanding.

I’m not saying that there is any good evidence for God’s existence (I don’t think there is). Not all evidence is good, in the sense of giving good reasons for believing the claim. Often today when people talk about evidence they mean good evidence, but that’s a bit inaccurate.

And I’m certainly not saying there are any good arguments for God’s existence (I don’t think there are). This part of the discussion arose from my making the purely historical observation that, as a matter of fact, Christians have typically thought that God’s existence can be (and has been) proved with absolute certainty. I don’t want to get further into arguments about what’s wrong with that view - I just wanted to correct the mistaken view that monotheists typically think that God’s existence must be taken on faith, or is an unjustifiable first principle. That is the fashionable view today but it is historically anomalous, so if you’re going to make generalisations about what monotheists think on this it’s important to bear that in mind.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I’m not saying natural disasters in Canada are good, just that they don’t convince me that we are nearing an imminent eschatological happening.

And I'm not suggesting they should convince you. I live in a bible belt region, though, with an increasingly-far right provincial government that contains people who are scientifically illiterate to the point that they don't understand that some wildfires are caused by lightning and that others that were mistakenly thought to be out can smolder underground for months and suddenly flare up again.

 

[r16]

no End of the World if it interferes with elections or hurts the stock markets .

to ease the reference stuff later on this was the week when there was some court drama involving a son of a head of state , not too great coverage of military victories because they would be deemed as distractions from the court case and all the lunatics were waiting for announcement that the Aliens are real . Which underlines the gravitas CFC must have once had , because we are like discussing or something that whether God Exists . Otherwise it would be circus , too .

 

[Kyriakos]

Just briefly again!

The case is slightly different. Receiving a letter apparently from Superman is very very weak evidence that Superman exists. But we are (almost) certain that Superman doesn’t exist because we know the history of his creation as a fictional being. It’s possible, though staggeringly unlikely, that there really is a Superman who just happens by coincidence to be real. But this isn’t really the case with God, who may well not be real, but as far as we know wasn’t invented as a consciously fictional being as Superman was.


I’m actually very sympathetic to this view. I agree that we don’t really know what phenomena we’d be more likely to see given the existence (or non-existence) of God, and this is why evidentially-based reasoning on this subject, whether it’s in support of theism or atheism, is rarely convincing. It doesn’t follow, though, that claims of the form “If there were/weren’t a God we’d be more likely to see X” are just arbitrary, because we might be able to give reasons why we think X would be more likely under that scenario. But yes, such reasons could never be certain, because we do not have the luxury of being able to examine alternate realities which are known to contain Gods and which could show us what to expect if our universe contained one.

But in math, you can examine other such realities - given they are of the same fabric as the rest. The problem is with the premise that the other reality you constructed is self-evidently having the trait you argued it does. It is why I gave an example (not the best) of someone first presenting a different reality (with the set) and then going on to argue that in that reality the new element automatically creates a larger probability for something. You didn't prove it would, and one would expect this to be the functional part (since the rest is just making up a new set). Don't you agree that you only argued that "if a religious experience has actually a nature tied to a god, it is more likely it will exist if a god is there"? It's not, from an angle I view as the crucial one, different from claiming "If following nazism actually had highly ethical positivity, it is more likely it manifested if nazism is grossly misunderstood"? In truth systems, you can always create similar (in many given ways) statements, but truth systems by definition have arbitrary truth values assigned. If the intention was to care about the truth, the system can only help with very defined and confined sets (such as relations between integers), not something as vast and unchecked as natural language. You will no doubt remember the arguments in Plato's Parmenides, where no system is definable when both what follows from it and what supports it are open (the opposite of a system like math, where what supports it is a basis of axioms, and to go lower you have to use a different system of axioms).
It's the major difference between dialectics and mathematics.

That's why it's a flawed point of view though, IMO - It's the human view, and what would humans know about gods? We're just making it up as we go along.

The problem is that the thing we are making up things about, is already in the den of made up by us things, so it never was shown to be out. A major problem with notions of gods, imo, is that they somehow have to be outside the realm of the one who imagines them, but only are formed inside that realm. Plato, famously, argued that the human tie to god (he called his god, the Benevolent - neutral gender) is infinitesimal, but still there. Previous philosophers, like the Eleans, specifically claimed that god isn't tied to humans in any way (which produced other issues, but also a nice situation where "everything in human thought is false, no matter how complicated or well-thought through" because it exists outside of the god-realm)
One has to suppose that an Elean (insofar as those were their views) would dismiss the argument by Plotinus on a different basis; that it is simply an argument using human means and therefore is false as one diminishing god to something humans can argue about. Of course the argument is also attacked from the opposite direction, that it is diminishing existing human methods of arguing about proof.

 

[Plotinus]

Don't you agree that you only argued that "if a religious experience has actually a nature tied to a god, it is more likely it will exist if a god is there"?

I don’t have time to address the rest, unfortunately, but that really isn’t what I was saying! I’m not sure I can express it any more clearly than I tried to do before, though, at least not in a forum post, so it’s probably best not to try.

BTW I hope you’re not affected by the Greek fires. I’m actually in Kos right now, which is very parched but not actually ablaze…

 

[Kyriakos]

Have a pleasant stay I haven't been to Kos. In northern Europe (where Thessalonike is ) the heat wasn't as severe.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I gave what you said some thought and in a way I believe you're right. Very little information but is that by design? I keep getting the nagging feeling that there is a lot more to the story then what they want us to know. Hence why I think there is a lot of misinformation out there despite having very little information. I hope that makes sense.

By adding "...by design" into the situation you have changed the nature of the question from looking at the growth and dissemination of information across cultures and nations to one of is history guided by some other force than what we can see easily. It goes back to one's fundamental assumptions. If one accepts that there is a god that is the driving force in our daily lives, then of course, intent and purpose come into play when thinking about the course of history etc.

We can easily count natural events and disasters now and the numbers seem to grow as our tools get better. That does not mean that 1000 years ago there were fewer. It just means that back then they did not have any way to to keep track of them or even know if such events were happening.

Many people here accept/assume that thoughtful, evidenced based reasoning and logic are the only meaningful path to a truthful understanding of this world and that non evidenced, experienced based pathways are mostly unreliable and cannot be trusted. There is no easy closing of this gap without changes to more fundamental questions. You can see this clearly in many posts above. One poster even used the language "religious experiences are just called that" as a way to invalidate peoples' personal experience: without proof, something cannot be true.

Theism wears many hats and they are not the same even within Christianity. On a global scales the variety is even greater. Each of us stands at a place we define or one which has been defined for us by others. How we define that space determines both what we can see and the pathways available to us to discover more. We all tend to think that our particular place is the best one. It's rules and assumptions are the best and its view of the universe and life are clearest. Some folks think they can prove that.

I've strayed, but that is common when such questions come up.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

A world under one currency? Roman coins. The gold standard. The British pound at the height of its empire.

All of your points are fair. But consider that we now have the ability to track spending/purchasing with digital currency.

I've strayed, but that is common when such questions come up.

I'm glad you strayed. There certainly is a lot to think about here.

It's Revelation, singular, fwiw. People do this all the time: make it plural. Just a minor pet peeve of mine. No offense meant. I'm an atheist, so not trying to get all Biblical on you, more just OCD on you.

Haha! Yes you're right. My bad.

 

[reddishrecue]

If god was real and all faith would diminish then there would be no more faith and the believing part will no longer exist.