Evidence for God

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Ruv Draba

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Well, I see what you're saying, but let me take one example, that of prayer working. [...]

you can believe that God, in some broad sense, exists, or two, you can come up with a convoluted but not impossible explanation involving some theory about psi and it only working for people who prayer when they use it.

It that case, Occam's razor points to the existence of God, not the psi explanation. If all this stuff were true, I, as an atheist, would be forced to start believing in God.
I don't think that Occam's razor does any such thing.

As a scientist, I'd be interested in the extent of the phenomenon. Does it matter whom you pray to? Does it matter what you pray for? Does it matter where, when or how you pray, or who does it? Which ailments are more tractable to prayer? What other natural phenomena are affected? How does prayer plus therapy compare to prayer or therapy alone? Which therapies are more effective with prayer? Which prayers work best with which therapies?

Should prayer become a reliable therapy, it could easily be seen as an entirely physical therapy like medicine, exercise and hygeine. Since 'faith' itself is hard to evaluate, it would be very hard to show that only 'faithful' prayer works, say. So we might have atheists in churches performing religious rites just because they think it's a physical phenomenon.

Before we posited an intelligent, invisible, silent third party over the other side of some imaginary curtain we would have to do some extraordinary testing to show that the intelligence was separate from that of the supplicant's. And then we'd have to see whether it was one intelligence or many, and how long its attention-span was, and try to test motive and extent of ability and a whole bunch of things.

And even then after all that, the word 'God' wouldn't be the simplest explanation though I agree that it might be a popular one. The simplest explanation is the one that explains just the phenomena we observe, and doesn't presume on phenomena we can't.

But that's all hypothetical because nothing like that has come close to happening. We know that therapies work or don't regardless of your mystical tradition, and that mystic rites are no better at improving health outcomes than pets, gardening or moderate consumption of red wine is. And I've never seen a definition of 'faith' that could be evaluated objectively.
 
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benbradley

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I don't think that Occam's razor does any such thing.

As a scientist, I'd be interested in the extent of the phenomenon. Does it matter whom you pray to? Does it matter what you pray for? Does it matter where, when or how you pray, or who does it? Which ailments are more tractable to prayer? What other natural phenomena are affected? How does prayer plus therapy compare to prayer or therapy alone? Which therapies are more effective with prayer? Which prayers work best with which therapies?

Should prayer become a reliable therapy, it could easily be seen as an entirely physical therapy like medicine, exercise and hygeine. Since 'faith' itself is hard to evaluate, it would be very hard to show that only 'faithful' prayer works, say. So we might have atheists in churches performing religious rites just because they think it's a physical phenomenon.
Anyone who wants to investigate the use of faith in the modern treatment of certain conditions should investigate Alcoholics Anonymous. It's fascinating, not just that it exists, but that it get promoted so strongly in the 21st Century not just by clergy, but also by medical doctors, psychologists, judges, and probation and parole officers.
 

Dommo

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That's definitely true.

In some ways it always has seemed to be that Alcoholics Anonymous is almost set up to try to trade one addiction (alcohol) for another (faith/god), in the hopes that the latter will be far less harmful.
 

kuwisdelu

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That's definitely true.

In some ways it always has seemed to be that Alcoholics Anonymous is almost set up to try to trade one addiction (alcohol) for another (faith/god), in the hopes that the latter will be far less harmful.

I've thought the same thing.
 

Ruv Draba

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I've mentioned this elsewhere too, though not specifically in the context of AA. It's possible to create psychosocial dependence in adults, though it's not just some religions which do this -- life coaches, some counsellors, manufacturers of hygeine, nutrition, diet and lifestyle products can all do the same.

I get very concerned when adults are sold stories that persuade them they can't be wholly responsible for their own moral welfare, to outsource conscience and self-responsibility to others. Perhaps for a few people that's exactly what's needed, but for many I think it's the opposite of what's needed.

Bringing it back to topic, I think that if we are dependent on particular stories for our own sense of self-worth and peace of mind, it becomes nigh-impossible to evaluate them independently. Instead of fitting stories to the evidence, we'll find the evidence to fit the stories. Then we can get upset if others won't see our stories as we do.

This isn't just confined to some faiths -- it applies equally to many secular products and services that we bind into our sense of identity.
 
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ChristineR

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There's not a ton of evidence that AA does anything more than act as a support group, and certainly not a ton of evidence that it works better than cognitive therapy techniques. There's a lot of overlap, just no religious overtones in the cognitive therapy.

AA seems to be basing it's reputation on a sort of confirmation bias. When a person is ready to stop drinking, they're likely to show up at an AA meeting, because that's what everyone tells them to do. If they like AA, they stick around, and AA counts them as a success. If they don't like AA, they leave, and stop drinking anyhow, and AA still counts them as a success.

There may not be any evidence that AA is better than secular therapy at all. The problem is that it's awfully hard to do studies on alcoholics that are or are not ready to break the addiction. You can't tell a sick person not to go to AA just because he's been assigned to your control group, and for many people, AA is the only option in their area, or the only option they can afford.
 

kuwisdelu

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There's not a ton of evidence that AA does anything more than act as a support group, and certainly not a ton of evidence that it works better than cognitive therapy techniques. There's a lot of overlap, just no religious overtones in the cognitive therapy.

AA seems to be basing it's reputation on a sort of confirmation bias. When a person is ready to stop drinking, they're likely to show up at an AA meeting, because that's what everyone tells them to do. If they like AA, they stick around, and AA counts them as a success. If they don't like AA, they leave, and stop drinking anyhow, and AA still counts them as a success.

There may not be any evidence that AA is better than secular therapy at all. The problem is that it's awfully hard to do studies on alcoholics that are or are not ready to break the addiction. You can't tell a sick person not to go to AA just because he's been assigned to your control group, and for many people, AA is the only option in their area, or the only option they can afford.

Eh, besides, it's also possible to break an addiction without joining any kind of group at all, and without actually giving up whatever you were addicted to.

That's my own biggest problem with such things. I refuse to admit I am powerless over something I should have power over — myself. And I refuse to turn my will over to anyone or anything. I believe I am responsible for my own actions, not some divine being.
 

benbradley

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There's not a ton of evidence that AA does anything more than act as a support group, and certainly not a ton of evidence that it works better than cognitive therapy techniques. There's a lot of overlap, just no religious overtones in the cognitive therapy.

AA seems to be basing it's reputation on a sort of confirmation bias. When a person is ready to stop drinking, they're likely to show up at an AA meeting, because that's what everyone tells them to do. If they like AA, they stick around, and AA counts them as a success. If they don't like AA, they leave, and stop drinking anyhow, and AA still counts them as a success.
Actually, not drinking without attending AA is called being a "dry drunk." Attending AA reminds one that God keeps one sober, that one is sober by the Grace of God (grace being an unmerited gift - one doesn't deserve it, but God gives it anyway).
There may not be any evidence that AA is better than secular therapy at all. The problem is that it's awfully hard to do studies on alcoholics that are or are not ready to break the addiction. You can't tell a sick person not to go to AA just because he's been assigned to your control group, and for many people, AA is the only option in their area, or the only option they can afford.
It's definitely not the only option they can afford, but with pamphlets like this one telling members to have officials send people to AA at every step along the way, AA may be the only option they hear about:
http://aa.org/lang/en/en_pdfs/mg-05_coopwithcourt.pdf

While AA has its differences with Christianity (AA members don't "fear God" the way many Christians do), it originated with a Christian group and borrows much more than it wants to admit from Christianity.

But AA is all about God (and believing in God, and pretending to believe in God - they say "pray, even if you don't believe") even moreso than about not drinking. Only the first step mentions alcohol, but half of the remaining 11 steps directly or indirectly mention God.

I have AA to thank for the years I believed in God. Part of my getting out of AA was analyzing its belief system and looking for ... evidence of God, or the supernatural in any form. After a couple years in AA I suspected my beliefs (almost exclusively things I had absorbed from AA, such "an alcoholic cannot stop drinking by himself, only God can help, thus as an alcoholic my sobriety is evidence for the existence of God"), weren't fully based in reality, so I started testing them.

(To be continued...)
 

Dommo

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That's a similar experience that a friend of mine had.

He did a 12 step program with AA, and for a while he was extremely religious, then one day he just realized that in the end he was the only one who could change anything. He could appeal all he wanted to God, but if he didn't will himself not to drink, he would have no one to blame but himself.

It was like the weirdest thing. He's been sober for a few years, but it was literally like an overnight change in the way he approached life.
 

DrZoidberg

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That's a similar experience that a friend of mine had.

He did a 12 step program with AA, and for a while he was extremely religious, then one day he just realized that in the end he was the only one who could change anything. He could appeal all he wanted to God, but if he didn't will himself not to drink, he would have no one to blame but himself.

It was like the weirdest thing. He's been sober for a few years, but it was literally like an overnight change in the way he approached life.

In AA it's not God, it's "higher power". It's nature is left completely open. In psychoanalysis it's the "big other", or in Freudian terms it's the "super ego". The mechanic of AA is to introduce these artificially. A friend who's a psychoanalyst and who has worked with addicts explained the idea behind AA, and why it works. It works for people with a weak super ego. Ie, lacking in discipline, or people who are bad at telling themselves what to do and sticking with it. People are addicts for different reasons. 12 stepping won't work for all addicts.

Originally when AA was founded the explicit goal was to help addicts by also "saving" them with God. But they stumbled on a secret recipe that can help people, God or not. That's why it is so popular. In Sweden people are rarely religious. So over here "higher power" is most often interpreted as the addict simply picking a fetish, and treating it with due reverence. In a friends DAA group there's a guy who's higher power is his aquarium fishes. It works for him.

I have a few strongly atheistic friends who most likely would have been dead by now if it wasn't for DAA. Their atheism is left quite intact in spite of bowing to a higher power.
 

aruna

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Same with a god. I accept that others believe in what is traditionally accepted as constituting a "god" and simple wait for the day they prove their existence.



The trouble with asking for proof is that you are require the "product" to prove its "producer". How can that ever be? Man's intelligence is a mere speck in the vastness of all there is and ever was. The tiniest, microscopic speck. Do you really believe that man's intelligence could ever even understand an iota of what caused all this, if there is such a cause?

And if we are looking for evidence, we are looking for it in the wrong place, by the wrong means.

In a discussion such as this the initial definition of "god" or "God" first has to be agreed on. otherwise we are talking at cross purposes. That hasn't happened, and probably won't, since everyone has their own god-concept or straw man. So, for starters, I will state my case:
I don't believe in SF's strawman god, nor in Gods and Goddesses (or, if they do exist, they are not important).

I do believe in formless Intelligence, or energy, which permeates all of this universe. I believe that this is what people of all religions worship as "God".

My "religion" if it can be called such, is Advaita Vedanta (non-duality), which has been described as that place where science and spirituality meet.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]Advaita and Science[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]According to some followers of Advaita, it may very well be a place where the scientific world intersects with the spiritual world. They point to the relationships between mass, frequency, and energy that 20th century physics has established and the Advaitic 'Unity of the Universe' as the common ground. They feel that these relationships, formalized as equations by Planck and Einstein, suggest that the whole mesh of the Universe blend into a One that exhibits itself as many (namely, mass, energy, wave etc), and that this follows Advaita's view that everything is but the manifestation of an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent "One". They also connect the De Broglie waves of modern physics to Aum in Hindu philosophy. Conversely, scientist Erwin Schrödinger was also a Vedantist and claimed to have been inspired by it in his contributions to quantum mechanics. Fritjof Capra's book, The Tao of Physics, is one among several that pursue this viewpoint as it investigates the relationship between modern, particularly quantum, physics and the core philosophies of various Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica] [/FONT]

I know for a fact that many physicists of today are working on the correlation between advaita and quantum physics. One of them, and I know this for a fact, was the late German atom physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker, as well as the two mentioned in the quote above.

I think this is the direction that "scientific proof of God" is going to go.

Like most atheists, I don't believe in anything on faith alone. I do believe in that energy because I can observe it myself. It's here and now, in me (and you), and can be experienced.

As for prayer: people are far too much concerened with "if prayer works". Of course it does; but not in the sense the prayers are granted, but in that it helps the one who prays. Prayer links the one who prays back to the core of his or her being. In times of crises it becomes an anchor, thus keeping people saner and healthier than if they had no anchor, but were at the mercy only of their own wild thoughts and fears.


Err, there's a big, big difference between a notion and a faith. Scientists don't have faith that the Higgs boson exists. We think it's likely to exist because the equations predict its existence. We're trying to find it precisely because we're open to the prospect that it doesn't exist. If scientific advancements were made on faith, who would bother with experiments?

Open-mindedness is not about having faith in something. It's about being open to the possibility that something is true and that it isn't true.
.

Observation in the sense described above, too, is more than faith. If that energy -- which physics agree does exist -- is in me then I can know it. And I do.
 
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zornhau

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re AA.
Obviously having faith can give you psychological powers (I tell my students "trust the system", and that makes them fight with more confidence). But that's not evidence for anything external.

re Prayer triggered miracles and Occams' Razor
I find Psi a less complex explanation that one God. Individual humans wielding super powers to a variety of ends fits the chaotic world we live in far better than a single power pursuing its own policy.

If miracles did fit a coherant policy, that would point to a single entity at work. Possible candidates would include: Collective Unconsciousness, Manna-feeding Alien Demons, a non-unique God with delusions of grandeur, a single God.
 

Ruv Draba

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There's plenty of claim that prayer calms people and helps their sanity -- and surely for some people it does.

But so too do many secular activities like meditation, psychotherapy, exercise, long strolls and laughter with friends. If we want to use 'evidence' in the physical sense then we must compare like with like. Moreover, we'd be foolish to ignore just how many people under psychiatric therapy have especially strong beliefs in magic and prayer. One can't claim that it's all roses for people who pray.

It's also important that we factor in what people are worried about. If religion increases guilt and anxiety by battering the faithful's self-esteem and undermining their security with tales of curses, evil spirits, apocalypses and unpleasant afterlives then it's hardly fair to credit prayer with allaying those religion-created fears.
 

Diana Hignutt

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Earlier, I had suggested that the fact that no only do the sun and moon appear the same size to us here on planet Earth, but that eclipses occur could possibly be evidence of God, or an intellegent creator. One poster responded that randomness could easily explain this phenomena.

I submit that randomness is a less convincing explanation than an intelligent creator. Higher states of order which arise out of non-biological, non-evolutionary processes seem better explained by a divine explanation than yet another nod to randomness. Such consistant appeals to randomness almost elevate randomness to a faith-based explanation no better than god. "God hides in random numbers."

And please, no one go all appeal to authority and quote Eisntein's God playing dice quote.
 
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kuwisdelu

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*drops in to note that chaos and randomness are completely different things*

Chaos isn't random; it's merely unpredictable but is still highly deterministic.
 

Diana Hignutt

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*drops in to note that chaos and randomness are completely different things*

Chaos isn't random; it's merely unpredictable but is still highly deterministic.

Drops in to point out that I changed my post and rendered this post meaningless. :)
 

Priene

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Earlier, I had suggested that the fact that no only do the sun and moon appear the same size to us here on planet Earth, but that eclipses occur could possibly be evidence of God, or an intellegent creator. One poster responded that randomness could easily explain this phenomena.

I submit that randomness is a less convincing explanation than an intelligent creator. Higher states of order which arise out of non-biological, non-evolutionary processes seem better explained by a divine explanation than yet another nod to randomness. Such consistant appeals to randomness almost elevate randomness to a faith-based explanation no better than god. "God hides in random numbers."

It's a good example of a spurious correlation. There is a huge set of possible coincidences in astronomy that do not happen. For instance, a chance line up of stars could produce a constellation that spells out "God exists". Or Jesus on the cross. There aren't. The ecliptic could line up exactly with the galactic equator. It doesn't. When one does, as with the moon and the sun, though the phenomenon is not perfect (annular eclipses) nor permanent (the moon is getting further from the sun), it's cited as convoluted evidence for something completely unrelated (a deity - if one existed, they'd be perfectly capable of providing unmistakeable evidence of their existence).
 

Shadow_Ferret

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Hpw do you know that you have not seen god, if you haven't defined that thing?
I don't. But that's God's fault for not introducing himself then, isn't it?
How do you know that you haven't seen the flying spaghetti monster, if you can't even define him?

How do you know fairies don't exist, if you can't even define them?

Both of those are very well defined. I'm very sure I'd recognize a fairy dancing on my lawn or be able to point out a flying spaghetti monster.

And I've seen plenty of pictures of Jesus, so I think I'd be able to recognize him, too, if he came to my door asking for a glass of water.
 

ChristineR

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Earlier, I had suggested that the fact that no only do the sun and moon appear the same size to us here on planet Earth, but that eclipses occur could possibly be evidence of God, or an intellegent creator. One poster responded that randomness could easily explain this phenomena.

I submit that randomness is a less convincing explanation than an intelligent creator. Higher states of order which arise out of non-biological, non-evolutionary processes seem better explained by a divine explanation than yet another nod to randomness. Such consistant appeals to randomness almost elevate randomness to a faith-based explanation no better than god. "God hides in random numbers."

And please, no one go all appeal to authority and quote Eisntein's God playing dice quote.

Okay, but then you have to have a God (or other intelligent creator--let's just call it "God") which is itself a result of either random, or non-random processes.

If something as complex as God is a result of random processes, then surely something as simple as the sun and moon being roughly the same size (as viewed from earth) could be the result of a random process. After all, we know many planets have moons that don't fit this pattern.

If God is not a result of random processes, then what is the non-random process that created God? Why can't that same process be the one that sized the moon?

If God is a special case--how so? Why is it that God can be special, but something relatively simple like our moon, has to be designed?
 

kuwisdelu

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Speaking as a statistician and former physics major... this just doesn't make much sense to me.

I don't get how an eclipse or the sun and moon appearing the same size from Earth have much of anything to do with God.
 

Diana Hignutt

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Okay, but then you have to have a God (or other intelligent creator--let's just call it "God") which is itself a result of either random, or non-random processes.

If something as complex as God is a result of random processes, then surely something as simple as the sun and moon being roughly the same size (as viewed from earth) could be the result of a random process. After all, we know many planets have moons that don't fit this pattern.

If God is not a result of random processes, then what is the non-random process that created God? Why can't that same process be the one that sized the moon?

If God is a special case--how so? Why is it that God can be special, but something relatively simple like our moon, has to be designed?

Many mystical traditions, but most notably Buddhism and the Western Mystical Tradition, describe God as arising out of the necessity of set theory from nothingness. I.E. there was nothingness, then awareness of the nothingness, and everything moved on from that point.
 

Diana Hignutt

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Speaking as a statistician and former physics major... this just doesn't make much sense to me.

I don't get how an eclipse or the sun and moon appearing the same size from Earth have much of anything to do with God.

See, people who believe in God, would say that God made that stuff happen for a reason.
 

ChristineR

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Many mystical traditions, but most notably Buddhism and the Western Mystical Tradition, describe God as arising out of the necessity of set theory from nothingness. I.E. there was nothingness, then awareness of the nothingness, and everything moved on from that point.

Why is awareness more likely to arise out of nothingness, than say, an matter/anti-matter pair?

I seeing a strong prejudice towards humans here. That is, it's easier for a aware (and hence human-like) creature to arise out of nothingness than other objects. In the case of matter/anti-matter pairs, we know that they do, indeed arise out of nothingness, so there's not much speculation there.

I see awareness as being a product of a complicated brain. No one seems to think that complex brains arise out of nothingness.

Now I know that some mystical theories believe that God is necessary, but I've never been able to wrap my mind around them myself. I'd be more accepting of a theory that has matter arising out of necessity and then life arising eventually (sort of the same way that the monkeys eventually write Shakespeare) and awareness arising from life, because life tends towards complexity. Which is cool, but I guess we haven't evolved into God yet, and God would be the endpoint--not the beginning.
 

PeterL

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I don't. But that's God's fault for not introducing himself then, isn't it?

No, you're the one who's is missing something. I could toss in a hackneyed adage here, but that would be piling on.
 
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