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the person of faith would also counter you with 'overwhelming evidence' of what God is doing for him... sometimes, this evidence is just subjective, at other t

the person of faith would also counter you with 'overwhelming evidence' of what God is doing for him... sometimes, this evidence is just subjective, at other times, it is clear and can be measured. Another analogy that I have heard is that 'magic' is when one is just wowed by what they see without being able to understand how it happens. Apple products bring that 'magic' though it can all be explained away in technical terms if one tried.

j4yav 5y ago
What is the (sometimes) clear and measurable evidence of what god has done for someone?
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  For some, it is clear that this brief moment of consciousness is an amazing gift. Soon our bodies will go back to the dust that we began as:)
  - j4yav 5y ago
    I agree, but how do you measure that though? Or prove that it isn’t an incredible thing regardless of if it was given to you by god?
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
      Well, things I think about: -this ‘Universe’ (seems to me) is so incredibly intelligible and information rich (information theory rise, e.g. entropy timeline of the observable universe). -there seems to be something rather than nothing -there doesn’t seem to be anything that happens without a cause (except, it seems to me, our will). These seem to be important data points… :)
      - greycol 5y ago
        The problem is your clear and measurable points don't actually point to a god. If you see some meaning in them that enriches your life that's great but they don't really count as evidence to those outside your religion (except perhaps when they also claim it as 'evidence' of their flavour of goddess). 1. Your brain/body evolved to interpret this richness in a universe that is unintelligible to us a conscious brain that evolved in that universe would almost certainly view those unintelligible to us rules as intelligible lest there be no purpose to that consciousness. Our brains also quite demonstrably processes unintelligible (to us) things as intelligible when they are not. 2. This is true in any universe where someone is around to point out that something exists and is a priori with or without creator beings. 3. Our will is either deterministic (happens with a cause) or it is not. In the case that it is deterministic we can ignore this example (which personally is my view). In the case it is not then the non deterministic part is reduced to the result of quantum coin flips altering the result in the larger scale world. Assuming so there are two possibilities either everything else is also happening at that level without a cause (which is counter to your point that it is only will that behaves this way) or the quantum coin flips are in some way deterministic which means so is will.
        mensetmanusman 5y ago
        Your third point on will is interesting. There is a lot of work in the social sciences showing that whether one asserts there is free will or not (as you allude to) is correlated heavily towards belief in God. If there is no free will, it is interesting that the universal laws of Physics would create clouds of atoms that assert there is a God :)

j4yav 5y ago

What is the (sometimes) clear and measurable evidence of what god has done for someone?

mensetmanusman 5y ago
For some, it is clear that this brief moment of consciousness is an amazing gift. Soon our bodies will go back to the dust that we began as:)
- j4yav 5y ago
  I agree, but how do you measure that though? Or prove that it isn’t an incredible thing regardless of if it was given to you by god?
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Well, things I think about: -this ‘Universe’ (seems to me) is so incredibly intelligible and information rich (information theory rise, e.g. entropy timeline of the observable universe). -there seems to be something rather than nothing -there doesn’t seem to be anything that happens without a cause (except, it seems to me, our will). These seem to be important data points… :)
    - greycol 5y ago
      The problem is your clear and measurable points don't actually point to a god. If you see some meaning in them that enriches your life that's great but they don't really count as evidence to those outside your religion (except perhaps when they also claim it as 'evidence' of their flavour of goddess). 1. Your brain/body evolved to interpret this richness in a universe that is unintelligible to us a conscious brain that evolved in that universe would almost certainly view those unintelligible to us rules as intelligible lest there be no purpose to that consciousness. Our brains also quite demonstrably processes unintelligible (to us) things as intelligible when they are not. 2. This is true in any universe where someone is around to point out that something exists and is a priori with or without creator beings. 3. Our will is either deterministic (happens with a cause) or it is not. In the case that it is deterministic we can ignore this example (which personally is my view). In the case it is not then the non deterministic part is reduced to the result of quantum coin flips altering the result in the larger scale world. Assuming so there are two possibilities either everything else is also happening at that level without a cause (which is counter to your point that it is only will that behaves this way) or the quantum coin flips are in some way deterministic which means so is will.
      - mensetmanusman 5y ago
        Your third point on will is interesting. There is a lot of work in the social sciences showing that whether one asserts there is free will or not (as you allude to) is correlated heavily towards belief in God. If there is no free will, it is interesting that the universal laws of Physics would create clouds of atoms that assert there is a God :)