Cyde Weys wrote:

Jim Spaza wrote:

Cyde Weys wrote:

Jim Spaza wrote:

David Jensen wrote:

There are no tests available, not even from that Bible that allow anyone
to demonstrate the existence of any gods.

Not true. You can demonstrate this for yourself. Actually, God
desires to have a personal relationship with you more than just book
knowledge of Him and a relationship through a church.

Do you realize how absurd this all sounds? Lets turn it around on you.

It's not so absurb for those to whom God has responded.

There are no tests available, not even from Dianetics that allow anyone
to demonstrate the existence of any alien gods.

Not true. You can demonstrate this for yourself. Actually, Xenu
desires to have a personal relationship with you more than just book
knowledge of Him and a relationship through a church of scientology.

Do you see how absurd that is? Just because YOU feel some sort of
hocus pocus in your head doesn't mean it is at all relevant to any of
us. Religion is faith - just accept it. Saying that there is some
sort of proof of it, but that it is only in your mind, is laughable.

Just because you have never experienced anything supernatural in your
life is no reason to dismiss the existence of the supernatural. You
don't want me to summarily dismiss every part of the theory of
evolution simply because I have not yet studied it, right?

I'm going to answer your question by duplicating another Usenet post,
with permission:

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I've hit this stumbling block in an argument over evolution before and
I didn't know how to get out of it at the time. Well, I spent a good
long time thinking about it and I've found a way to better eloquently
explain my position.

So you're arguing about creationism/evolution with someone, and they
say, "But science requires just as much faith as creationism. They're
just competing worldviews and are equally valid." Uh-oh, red flag!

You say, "But science has evidence and experiments. You don't just
take things on faith; you can prove them."

And they say, "But I've felt God's presence. I was reading the Bible
and felt something immensely powerful watching over me. That feeling
is more proof than any experiment could ever provide."

Now this is where things get interesting. You say, "I've never felt
that 'power' personally. How do I know it's true? Just because what
happens to you is proof for you doesn't make it proof for me."

And then they say, "Then it's the same situation with science. You've
never personally dug up those 'transitional' fossils. You never did
the DNA tests on the fossils to show some sort of 'succession'. Some
other scientist claims he did and you believed him. That's just as
valid as me telling you my feelings of God."

Go in for the kill! You say, "But you CAN reproduce another
scientist's experiment. If you're testing, say, the inverse-square law
in electromagnetism, you can measure the force of one magnet upon
another with the simple use of a pendulum accelerometer (by measuring
the angle of repulsion/attraction). I have a feeling that you may
'believe' in the theory of electromagnetism, but how do you know it's
really true? Have you actually measured it yourself? No, you probably
haven't. But you COULD. I could give you two magnets, a string, a
ruler, and a protractor, and in ten minutes flat you could verify the
inverse-square law part of the theory of electromagnetism. If you
wanted to verify other parts of the theory I could give more advanced
equipment, and yes, it might take a little bit longer, but you could
verify still more parts of the theory. And if you wanted to verify all
parts of the theory you'd probably have to take many years of college
physics in order to understand it all, but you could do that, too.

"Now your feelings of God, on the other hand, can't be reproduced. You
can't tell me a methodology to replicate that experience. I've
personally never felt that in my life. So I can't just take your word
on it. It has to be able to be recreated by anyone, not just a
religious person with a confirmation bias in favor of experiencing that
feeling. Now if you tell me that the theory of electromagnetism is
true, however, I can go out and perform the experiments myself. I'm
not suggesting that everyone should go out and test all theories for
themselves; that, of course, would be absurd. But you *could*. And
thousands *have*, and all found results that agreed with the theory.
That is why I believe in the theory of electromagnetism 'just' because
a scientist tells me it is true, although, to be fair, I have tested
the inverse-square law in a high school physics class.

"Now, we come back to the theory of evolution. Evolution is true in
the same sense that electromagnetism is true. The theory of
electromagnetism is an overarching paradigm in physics that explains
many physical phenomena. Similarly, the theory of evolution is an
overarching paradigm in biology that explains many biological
phenomena. The proof is in the fossil record and the DNA of organisms.
Maybe you personally haven't dug a transitional fossil out of the
ground, but you could go to a museum to see one, and hell, if you
really wanted to, you COULD join an archaeological dig crew. And maybe
right now you don't have the right equipment or knowledge to understand
the genetic evidence, but it is there, and if you were really intent on
duplicating the evidence to prove it for yourself, you could. But
there is nothing in the world I can do to attempt to duplicate your
feeling of faith in your religion. That is the difference between
science and faith. Science does not require faith in its results; they
are all independently testable. There are no tests you can do of
religious faith."

And then if they bring up the whole, "But how can you trust your
experiments, your instruments, your eyes, your senses?", you say ...

"That is a slippery slope argument. Then how can you trust your
feelings of faith? Why would some internal feeling of God's power be
more valid than what you can SEE? How can you trust *anything*? That
is something philosophers have come up against and managed to solve.
If you cannot trust anything, then nothing we say on these issues
matters; anything is equally valid. Jesus could just as much be a pink
elephant as the son of God. You can't trust your eyes when you read
the words of the Bible; for all you know, the devil is there distorting
the words every time anyone on Earth reads them, and what God really
wants is entirely different than anyone believes.

"This is a dark place to go into. Your footing is on much more solid
ground if you say, well, there are some things I can trust. Cogito
ergo sum. I exist. And what I see is the truth of things. Granted, I
can't see X-rays, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. I can see
that they exist by using tools, something our evolving intelligence
gifted us with many millions of years ago. I can use simple
photographic X-ray film to show that X-rays exist. I can use lab
equipment to show that individual atoms exist. By simply accepting
that what you see is true and that it is all not just a trickery, we
can extend our knowledge to most of the universe by using our tools.
And this is a much better path to take than not trusting anything."

All excellent, legitimate points...except one.

You may not be able to test for a generic supreme being, but you can
test to see if that supreme being is God as described in the Bible.
You can test for yourself, with measurable results, if God as described
in the Bible is real.

Caveat: this is something subjective and personal. If you treat this
attempt to know God only as an objective, scientific test without any
caring on your part that God might be real, without any genuine desire
to discover God yourself, then probably nothing will happen. And I
wouldn't do this while watching a football game and drinking a beer in
your easy chair. If God is real, then we should show respect.

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." -
Romans 10:13

The Bible calls being "saved" the first, best step to knowing God. It
means accepting Jesus' sacrifice on the cross as payment for your sins
so that you'll go to Heaven when you pass on from this world.

"Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty
things, which thou knowest not." - Jeremiah 33:3

If you honestly want to find out if the God of Israel is real, then ask
God to reveal Himself to you. Ask for faith. Be ready for a response,
sometimes in an unusual way.

All excellent, legitimate points...except one.

You may not be able to test for a generic supreme being, but you can
test to see if that supreme being is God as described in the Bible.
You can test for yourself, with measurable results, if God as described
in the Bible is real.