Scientific proof that God exists?

[Vod]

baddecker is a fool - he thinks the millions of people dying from hunger in Africa are doing so by choice.  His own words.  

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[BADecker]

baddecker is a fool - he thinks the millions of people dying from hunger in Africa are doing so by choice.  His own words.  

The millions in Africa and around the world that believe in Jesus for eternal life, will be raised in the resurrection of all people, to that eternal life they believed Jesus for.

Other than that, nobody likes pain, but everybody dies.

[bl4kjaguar]

I can't apologize for your foolishness. Only you can do that.

You can show me where I am wrong. Literally and explicitly.

You call it foolishness but you did not do any comparison, so you contradict yourself.

No wonder you want this conversation to end!

You simply will not listen to anyone that questions the integrity of the Bible; you just call them a fool and leave it at that! No further investigation needed.

[BADecker]

I can't apologize for your foolishness. Only you can do that.

You can show me where I am wrong. Literally and explicitly.

You call it foolishness but you did not do any comparison, so you contradict yourself.

No wonder you want this conversation to end!

It's in my posts. I have repeated it over and over. Any time you want to take a look, simply click my handle "BADecker" at the top left of any of my posts, go to the bottom of the linked page that comes up, and click the "Show the last posts of this person" link. Then read to your little heart's content.

[bl4kjaguar]

I can't apologize for your foolishness. Only you can do that.

You can show me where I am wrong. Literally and explicitly.

You call it foolishness but you did not do any comparison, so you contradict yourself.

No wonder you want this conversation to end!

It's in my posts. I have repeated it over and over. Any time you want to take a look, simply click my handle "BADecker" at the top left of any of my posts, go to the bottom of the linked page that comes up, and click the "Show the last posts of this person" link. Then read to your little heart's content.

Many in this thread have criticized (you because of) your failure to understand logic.

You fail to provide substantial criticism of my truth; it seems like you do not even want to. Hence, I accept that my WORD and your WORD do agree with each other, even though I question the integrity of the Bible.

Since God is everywhere, God's truth is everywhere, so it seems wrong to limit truth to two volumes; we should do a real comparison.

[BADecker]

I can't apologize for your foolishness. Only you can do that.

You can show me where I am wrong. Literally and explicitly.

You call it foolishness but you did not do any comparison, so you contradict yourself.

No wonder you want this conversation to end!

It's in my posts. I have repeated it over and over. Any time you want to take a look, simply click my handle "BADecker" at the top left of any of my posts, go to the bottom of the linked page that comes up, and click the "Show the last posts of this person" link. Then read to your little heart's content.

Many in this thread have criticized (you because of) your failure to understand logic.

You fail to provide substantial criticism of my truth; it seems like you do not even want to. Hence, I accept that my WORD and your WORD do agree with each other, even though I question the integrity of the Bible.

Since God is everywhere, God's truth is everywhere, so it seems wrong to limit truth to two volumes; we should do a real comparison.

So you aren't going to read my posts? Well, then what further do we have to talk about? As far as logic goes, the whole logic of posting in this forum is as found below.

You are not required to accept anything that I say. Who is going to require it of you? Certainly not me. How can I force you to accept anything from me? I don't have the means or method even if I wanted to. You talk foolishness - in circles, though not as circular as some others. Why would you think that you must accept anything from me... words or anything else?

[bl4kjaguar]

BADecker,

You are not supposed to attack your brother.

Why do you call my beliefs foolishness? That is NOT Christian behavior and I obviously do not accept it. Matt 5:22-24.

Why do you attack me when you have no basis for doing so? That is NOT rational behavior and I will require you to correct your mistake like a responsible Christed being.

[BADecker]

BADecker,

You are not supposed to attack your brother.

Here we go again. How do you even know I have a brother? It certainly isn't you, if I do.

Why do you call my beliefs foolishness? That is NOT Christian behavior and I obviously do not accept it. Matt 5:22-24.

I was talking about your foolishness. Nobody knows what you believe... probably not even you, yourself. For example, here you are, appearing to quote the Bible that you don't believe in.

Why do you attack me when you have no basis for doing so? That is NOT rational behavior and I will require you to correct your mistake like a responsible Christed being.

Attack you? I can't even get you to slow down from attacking yourself! Of course, why should I? Because I would have pity for a dumb animal as well. Get off it, non-brother.

[bl4kjaguar]

Hi BADecker,

You were talking about MY foolishness???

Jesus said:

"I can guarantee that whoever is angry with another believer (his brother) will answer for it in court. Whoever calls another believer (his brother) an insulting name will answer for it in the highest court. Whoever calls another believer (his brother) a fool (impious) will answer for it in hellfire."

I am your brother; I believe in Christ, and yet you attack ME under the guise of attacking "my foolishness".

 

[BADecker]

Hi BADecker,

You were talking about MY foolishness???

Jesus said:

"I can guarantee that whoever is angry with another believer (his brother) will answer for it in court. Whoever calls another believer (his brother) an insulting name will answer for it in the highest court. Whoever calls another believer (his brother) a fool (impious) will answer for it in hellfire."

I am your brother; I believe in Christ, and yet you attack ME under the guise of attacking "my foolishness".

 

We are kinda having fun, aren't we?

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ of the Bible, you have expressed the opposite of it in your posts.

So, what are you trying to do, my non-brother? Make me feel guilty?

What does God require to do the works of God? Simply, believe in Jesus Christ Whom He has sent. If it weren't for the Bible, nobody would even know about the Christ.

Or did you convert within the last half-hour or so?

[bl4kjaguar]

So, what are you trying to do, my non-brother? Make me feel guilty?

I want you to have some responsibility for your behavior.

As far as I know, our beliefs are NOT in conflict.

What is different is that you believe in a savior who will take away your responsibility. However, Matt 5:22 clearly states that you will be held responsible (to an extreme) if you call a believer a fool.

You have called me a fool. But I still do not know why your Bible is right and the WORD is wrong, and how you can prove this without quoting from the WORD (i.e. doing a comparison).

I never wanted it to be like this; in fact, I only read Matt 5:22 today.

[the joint]

...

...

If you can't conclude that

God can never be revealed in His entirety by the scientific method,

then you can't conclude that

He can be revealed in part by that method.

In other words, if you can't understand God in His entirety, then it's impossible to conclude that any "part" of God you might be witnessing is actually God.

Consequently, there is no amount of empirical evidence that can lead to a conclusion that God exists.

Why? (Of course, we are speaking of God, which makes things different than any example.) A crude example might be a car. We see the car, yet we see it only from one side at a time. A mechanic may know every last thing there is to know about an engine and transmission - even the metallurgy - yet he may know little or nothing about the fabrics that make up the upholstery, or the glass that makes up the windows.

Because it's a limitation of inductive reasoning.

Your car analogy doesn't work.  The reason the car analogy doesn't work is because a car can fit within the entirety of our scope of observation, whereas a monotheistic god cannot.

We know what a car is.  A car is a product of human invention and imagination, and so we know what the definition of a car is.  Accordingly, any time we actually see a car (i.e. we observed/evidenced it), then we can relate that observation back to the definition of a car.  Because the observation matches our known definition of what a car is, we can conclude that we are observing a car.

This doesn't work with God.  If God exists, he cannot be the product of human invention and imagination.  Accordingly, unlike the car, we are unable to start with any presumptions about what God may be.  So, it doesn't matter what evidence you find because you'll never be able to relate your observations back to a known definition of God so as to be able to conclude that the evidence is actually a part of God.

Edit:  Do you realize that, in using your car analogy, you were attempting to use a method of inductive reasoning similar to what's practiced via the scientific method?  Science forms hypotheses (i.e presumptions) which are then tested by evidence.  If the evidence supports the presumption, then the hypothesis holds.  For example, evidence is held against the hypothesis/theory of evolution to test whether the available evidence supports it.  You are trying to do the same thing by making a God "hypothesis", so-to-speak, and then holding up evidence against that hypothesis to see if your hypothesis holds.  However, in the same way that evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that evolution is correct at a 100% level of confidence, evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that God exists at a 100% level of confidence.

Edit 2:  I think it's imperative you understand this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

The problem of induction is the philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning leads to knowledge understood in the classic philosophical sense,[1] since it focuses on the lack of justification for either:

Generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class (for example, the inference that "all swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white," before the discovery of black swans) or
Presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold). Hume called this the principle of uniformity of nature.[2]
The problem calls into question all empirical claims made in everyday life or through the scientific method and for that reason the philosopher C. D. Broad said that "induction is the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy." Although the problem arguably dates back to the Pyrrhonism of ancient philosophy, as well as the Carvaka school of Indian philosophy, David Hume introduced it in the mid-18th century, with the most notable response provided by Karl Popper two centuries later.

[BADecker]

“By the sky which RETURNS.” (Quran 86:11)

“[He] who made for you the earth a bed [spread out] and the sky a ceiling…” (Quran 2:22)

In the first verse God swears by the sky[1]  and its function of ‘returning’ without specifying what it ‘returns.’  In Islamic doctrine, a divine oath signifies the magnitude of importance of a special relation to the Creator, and manifests His majesty and the supreme Truth in a special way.

The second verse describes the Divine Act that made the sky a ‘ceiling’ for the dwellers of earth.

Let us see what modern atmospheric science has to say about the role and function of the sky.

The atmosphere is a word which denotes all the air surrounding the earth, from the ground all the way up to the edge from which space starts.  The atmosphere is composed of several layers, each defined because of the various phenomena which occur within the layer.

Rain, for one, is ‘returned’ to Earth by THE CLOUDS in the atmosphere.  Explaining the hydrologic cycle, Encyclopedia Britannica writes:

“Water evaporates from both the aquatic and terrestrial environments as it is heated by the Sun’s energy.  The rates of evaporation and precipitation depend on solar energy, as do the PATTERNS of circulation of moisture in the air and currents in the ocean.  Evaporation exceeds precipitation over the oceans, and this water vapor is transported by the wind over land, where it returns to the land through precipitation.”

Not only does the atmosphere return what was on the surface back to the surface, but it reflects back into space that which might damage the flora and fauna the earth sustains, such as excessive RADIANT HEAT.  In the 1990’s, collaborations between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan resulted in the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Science Initiative.  Polar, Wind and Geotail are a part of this initiative, combining resources and scientific communities to obtain coordinated, simultaneous investigations of the Sun-Earth space environment over an extended period of time.  They have an excellent explanation of how the atmosphere returns solar heat to space.

Besides ‘returning’ rain, heat and radio waves, the atmosphere protects us like a ceiling above our heads by filtering out deadly cosmic rays, powerful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun, and even meteorites on collision COURSE with Earth.

Pennsylvania State PUBLIC Broadcasting tells us:

“The sunlight that we can see represents one group of wavelengths, visible light.  Other wavelengths emitted by the sun include x-rays and ultraviolet radiation.  X-rays and some ultraviolet light waves are absorbed high in Earth’s atmosphere.  They heat the thin layer of gas there to very high temperatures.  Ultraviolet light waves are the rays that can cause sunburn.  Most ultraviolet light waves are absorbed by a thicker layer of gas closer to Earth called the ozone layer.  By soaking up the deadly ultraviolet and x-rays, the atmosphere acts as a protective shield around the planet.  Like a giant thermal blanket, the atmosphere also keeps temperatures from getting too hot or too cold.  In addition, the atmosphere also protects us from constant bombardment by meteoroids, bits of rock and dust that travel at HIGH SPEEDS throughout the solar system.  The falling stars we see at night are not stars at all; they are actually meteoroids burning up in our atmosphere due to the extreme heating they undergo.”

Encyclopedia Britannica, describing the role of Stratosphere, tells us about its PROTECTIVE role in absorbing dangerous ultraviolet radiation:

“In the upper stratospheric regions, absorption of ultraviolet light from the Sun breaks down oxygen molecules; recombination of oxygen atoms with O2 molecules into ozone (O3) creates the ozone layer, which shields the lower ecosphere from harmful short-wavelength radiation…More disturbing, however, is the discovery of a growing depletion of ozone over temperate latitudes, where a large percentage of the world’s population resides, since the ozone layer serves as a shield against ultraviolet radiation, which has been found to cause skin CANCER.”

The mesosphere is the layer in which many meteors burn up while entering the Earth’s atmosphere.  Imagine a BASEBALL zipping along at 30,000 miles per hour.  That’s how big and fast many meteors are.  When they plow through the atmosphere, meteors are heated to more than 3000 DEGREESFahrenheit, and they glow.  A meteor compresses air in front of it.  The air heats up, in turn heating the meteor.
 
Earth is surrounded by a magnetic force field - a bubble in space called “the magnetosphere” tens of thousands of miles wide.  The magnetosphere acts as a shield that protects us from solar storms.  However, according to new observations from NASA’s IMAGE spacecraft and the joint NASA/European Space Agency Cluster SATELLITES, immense cracks sometimes develop in Earth’s magnetosphere and remain open for hours.  This allows the solar wind to gush through and power stormy space weather.  Fortunately, these cracks do not expose Earth’s surface to the solar wind.  Our atmosphere protects us, even when our magnetic field does not.


How would it be possible for a fourteenth century desert dweller to describe the sky in a manner so precise that only recent scientific discoveries have CONFIRMED it?  The only way is if he received revelation from the Creator of the sky.

Knowledge abounds. A smart person might know a lot of it. Ancient maps show Antarctica without a covering of ice. Yet, nobody knows how people could have drawn such maps at a time when there was barely a knowledge that the earth was roundish. The point? We don't know how they knew.

Despite whatever is in the various religious books, the Bible has the only way to be saved. We will die. There will be a resurrection and judgment. "Saved" has to do with where we will spend eternity. Even the Bible is not 100% clear about the things that will exist in the life hereafter. But it is clear about the only way there. Believing in Jesus for salvation.

The Book of Mormon has quotes from the Bible in it. They might be enough to save some, because they are Bible Jesus. Islam has none of these salvation quotes.

[BADecker]

So, what are you trying to do, my non-brother? Make me feel guilty?

I want you to have some responsibility for your behavior.

As far as I know, our beliefs are NOT in conflict.

What is different is that you believe in a savior who will take away your responsibility. However, Matt 5:22 clearly states that you will be held responsible (to an extreme) if you call a believer a fool.

You have called me a fool. But I still do not know why your Bible is right and the WORD is wrong, and how you can prove this without quoting from the WORD (i.e. doing a comparison).

I never wanted it to be like this; in fact, I only read Matt 5:22 today.

If you are truly attempting to benefit me in some way, I thank you.

As far as I know, our beliefs are in conflict.

Yes and no to the idea of removal of responsibility. Yes in the big way, because God demands perfection, and we have none of that... at least not in this life without the help of God, and then only once in a while. No in the way that if we do not adhere to some extent to the teaching of Jesus, we express that we don't have faith.

I had thought I had called your foolishness foolishness, not you a fool. If you don't have even an ounce or millimeter of foolishness at least once in a while, then I was wrong.

The Bible is right because of this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg9783228#msg9783228. The Bible excludes writings following the Revelation because of this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.msg9798641#msg9798641.

[bl4kjaguar]

the Bible has the only way to be saved.

We don't know how you know.

BADecker, you never offer proof for your most important claims; from what I can tell, you offer arguments from authority. Someone has told you this, and you accepted it; I do not think that you personally know for a fact that the Bible has saved even a single soul, although I am willing to be proven wrong.

You refuse to acknowledge what the WORD of God has to say on the subject. It seems like you prefer to read what MAN SAID that God said, and you accept MAN'S authority as proof that "the Bible is right".

Actually, it is not the Bible which is important, but the teachings of Christ, who said that God's Law is written on your heart (you won't find it on a cross or anywhere else).

Believing in Jesus for salvation.

Christ never said "I, Jesus, am God".
Christ never said "I, Jesus, am the [only] way [to salvation]".

If you want to understand "I and my Father are One", there is a lengthy discussion of this topic in God's WORD; elsewhere, you can find the phrase "I am the way..." explained.

[BADecker]

...

...

If you can't conclude that

God can never be revealed in His entirety by the scientific method,

then you can't conclude that

He can be revealed in part by that method.

In other words, if you can't understand God in His entirety, then it's impossible to conclude that any "part" of God you might be witnessing is actually God.

Consequently, there is no amount of empirical evidence that can lead to a conclusion that God exists.

Why? (Of course, we are speaking of God, which makes things different than any example.) A crude example might be a car. We see the car, yet we see it only from one side at a time. A mechanic may know every last thing there is to know about an engine and transmission - even the metallurgy - yet he may know little or nothing about the fabrics that make up the upholstery, or the glass that makes up the windows.

Because it's a limitation of inductive reasoning.

Your car analogy doesn't work.  The reason the car analogy doesn't work is because a car can fit within the entirety of our scope of observation, whereas a monotheistic god cannot.

We know what a car is.  A car is a product of human invention and imagination, and so we know what the definition of a car is.  Accordingly, any time we actually see a car (i.e. we observed/evidenced it), then we can relate that observation back to the definition of a car.  Because the observation matches our known definition of what a car is, we can conclude that we are observing a car.

This doesn't work with God.  If God exists, he cannot be the product of human invention and imagination.  Accordingly, unlike the car, we are unable to start with any presumptions about what God may be.  So, it doesn't matter what evidence you find because you'll never be able to relate your observations back to a known definition of God so as to be able to conclude that the evidence is actually a part of God.

Edit:  Do you realize that, in using your car analogy, you were attempting to use a method of inductive reasoning similar to what's practiced via the scientific method?  Science forms hypotheses (i.e presumptions) which are then tested by evidence.  If the evidence supports the presumption, then the hypothesis holds.  For example, evidence is held against the hypothesis/theory of evolution to test whether the available evidence supports it.  You are trying to do the same thing by making a God "hypothesis", so-to-speak, and then holding up evidence against that hypothesis to see if your hypothesis holds.  However, in the same way that evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that evolution is correct at a 100% level of confidence, evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that God exists at a 100% level of confidence.

Edit 2:  I think it's imperative you understand this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

The problem of induction is the philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning leads to knowledge understood in the classic philosophical sense,[1] since it focuses on the lack of justification for either:

Generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class (for example, the inference that "all swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white," before the discovery of black swans) or
Presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold). Hume called this the principle of uniformity of nature.[2]
The problem calls into question all empirical claims made in everyday life or through the scientific method and for that reason the philosopher C. D. Broad said that "induction is the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy." Although the problem arguably dates back to the Pyrrhonism of ancient philosophy, as well as the Carvaka school of Indian philosophy, David Hume introduced it in the mid-18th century, with the most notable response provided by Karl Popper two centuries later.

I totally am NOT against science or scientists. What I am against is scientists using some scientific evidence or proof to extrapolate all kinds of things that can easily be extrapolated in multitudes of ways and directions using the same or other scientific evidence or proof. And what gets me is when they try to tell us that they have found the whole thing when they have merely extrapolated in a single direction of many. (Sorry if I didn't say that very well. Please try to get the idea of what I am talking about, anyway.)

It seems evident that we exist, even though we don't really have enough scientific evidence or proof - by a long shot - to make a determination that we do. Same with God, especially that the evidence that we do have, would have been planted here by Him if He DOES exists. We have nothing that I have seen, in ideas or philosophy or science (could easily have missed it, however) that suggests where we and the universe might have come from, that has nearly the strength of the God idea.

Stand everything that all of us have talked about in this thread side by side, and see which of them makes the most sense. To me, it is the God idea. And I am not talking Christianity here. I am simply talking God in one of the more vague dictionary definitions of the word.

[the joint]

...

...

If you can't conclude that

God can never be revealed in His entirety by the scientific method,

then you can't conclude that

He can be revealed in part by that method.

In other words, if you can't understand God in His entirety, then it's impossible to conclude that any "part" of God you might be witnessing is actually God.

Consequently, there is no amount of empirical evidence that can lead to a conclusion that God exists.

Why? (Of course, we are speaking of God, which makes things different than any example.) A crude example might be a car. We see the car, yet we see it only from one side at a time. A mechanic may know every last thing there is to know about an engine and transmission - even the metallurgy - yet he may know little or nothing about the fabrics that make up the upholstery, or the glass that makes up the windows.

Because it's a limitation of inductive reasoning.

Your car analogy doesn't work.  The reason the car analogy doesn't work is because a car can fit within the entirety of our scope of observation, whereas a monotheistic god cannot.

We know what a car is.  A car is a product of human invention and imagination, and so we know what the definition of a car is.  Accordingly, any time we actually see a car (i.e. we observed/evidenced it), then we can relate that observation back to the definition of a car.  Because the observation matches our known definition of what a car is, we can conclude that we are observing a car.

This doesn't work with God.  If God exists, he cannot be the product of human invention and imagination.  Accordingly, unlike the car, we are unable to start with any presumptions about what God may be.  So, it doesn't matter what evidence you find because you'll never be able to relate your observations back to a known definition of God so as to be able to conclude that the evidence is actually a part of God.

Edit:  Do you realize that, in using your car analogy, you were attempting to use a method of inductive reasoning similar to what's practiced via the scientific method?  Science forms hypotheses (i.e presumptions) which are then tested by evidence.  If the evidence supports the presumption, then the hypothesis holds.  For example, evidence is held against the hypothesis/theory of evolution to test whether the available evidence supports it.  You are trying to do the same thing by making a God "hypothesis", so-to-speak, and then holding up evidence against that hypothesis to see if your hypothesis holds.  However, in the same way that evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that evolution is correct at a 100% level of confidence, evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that God exists at a 100% level of confidence.

Edit 2:  I think it's imperative you understand this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

The problem of induction is the philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning leads to knowledge understood in the classic philosophical sense,[1] since it focuses on the lack of justification for either:

Generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class (for example, the inference that "all swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white," before the discovery of black swans) or
Presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold). Hume called this the principle of uniformity of nature.[2]
The problem calls into question all empirical claims made in everyday life or through the scientific method and for that reason the philosopher C. D. Broad said that "induction is the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy." Although the problem arguably dates back to the Pyrrhonism of ancient philosophy, as well as the Carvaka school of Indian philosophy, David Hume introduced it in the mid-18th century, with the most notable response provided by Karl Popper two centuries later.

I totally am NOT against science or scientists. What I am against is scientists using some scientific evidence or proof to extrapolate all kinds of things that can easily be extrapolated in multitudes of ways and directions using the same or other scientific evidence or proof. And what gets me is when they try to tell us that they have found the whole thing when they have merely extrapolated in a single direction of many. (Sorry if I didn't say that very well. Please try to get the idea of what I am talking about, anyway.)

It seems evident that we exist, even though we don't really have enough scientific evidence or proof - by a long shot - to make a determination that we do. Same with God, especially that the evidence that we do have, would have been planted here by Him if He DOES exists. We have nothing that I have seen, in ideas or philosophy or science (could easily have missed it, however) that suggests where we and the universe might have come from, that has nearly the strength of the God idea.

Stand everything that all of us have talked about in this thread side by side, and see which of them makes the most sense. To me, it is the God idea. And I am not talking Christianity here. I am simply talking God in one of the more vague dictionary definitions of the word.

I would agree with you that I, too, dislike when scientists or anyone else assert a conclusion with absolute certainty based upon empirical data.  Although, I think it's important to make a distinction between contexts in which the word 'prove' is acceptable in science vs. contexts in which it is not acceptable.  For example, while it is not acceptable to say that a scientific conclusion is proven beyond all doubt, it is acceptable to say that it is proven based upon the data that's available, and within a certain level of confidence (e.g. "The data supports the hypothesis, p < .05," indicating a 95% confidence level).  P < .05 is probably the most common standard used, although you'll see some studies which test hypotheses at other confidence levels (e.g p < .01, or a 99% confidence level).  The scientific method does not permit conclusions at a 100% confidence level.

Yes, it is self-evident that we exist, and you are correct that there is no conclusive, empirical evidence to support this.  Fortunately, we don't need any.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is the "same with God," as I wouldn't say that God is self-evident.  However, I would say that basically all of the ideas necessary to form a conclusion that God exists stem from that which is self-evident.

I would also agree that God seems the logical conclusion.

As a whole, this last post of yours seems much more reasonable than previous ones.

[BADecker]

the Bible has the only way to be saved.

We don't know how you know.

BADecker, you never offer proof for your most important claims; from what I can tell, you offer arguments from authority. Someone has told you this, and you accepted it; I do not think that you personally know for a fact that the Bible has saved even a single soul, although I am willing to be proven wrong.

You are certainly welcome to not believe the things I say. You are certainly welcome to not examine what I say further. The depth of my knowledge of the truth of my own words is a balance between evidence, thinking and faith. If it were pure knowledge, it would not fall into the realm of what God requires. That realm includes as one of its most important prerequisites, faith.

You refuse to acknowledge what the WORD of God has to say on the subject. It seems like you prefer to read what MAN SAID that God said, and you accept MAN'S authority as proof that "the Bible is right".

I consider the Word of God and the Bible to be very similar. A Bible that sits on a fireplace mantle, or in a bookshelf, and is never opened and read, is not really the Word of God. It is only when the Bible is read that it is the Word speaking to the heart of the reader, or listener if it is read out loud.

My previous post in response to you has the links in it why the Bible is the only Word of God. To summarize, there is power in the way the Bible came into being, the things it says, and the way it has spread around the world, talking to the hearts of many people. The Revelation expresses that it is the only Word of God from the time of John, near the end of the first century A.D., up to the New Heavens and the New Earth. Once we get there, who knows what God will say then.

Actually, it is not the Bible which is important, but the teachings of Christ, who said that God's Law is written on your heart (you won't find it on a cross or anywhere else).

Believing in Jesus for salvation.

Christ never said "I, Jesus, am God".

Most of the words that Jesus spoke in the Bible are in the first 4 books in the New Testament. You will find many places therein where Jesus says that He is God. He simply doesn't speak the same way we do most of the time. He constantly speaks in parables, even with His disciples... except when He explains things clearly to them on a few occasions.

Christ never said "I, Jesus, am the [only] way [to salvation]".

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father but by Me."

If you want to understand "I and my Father are One", there is a lengthy discussion of this topic in God's WORD; elsewhere, you can find the phrase "I am the way..." explained.

My purpose in writing in this thread was to answer the idea that we can't scientifically prove that God exists. Yet, we have way more evidence for the existence of God than we do for any other method or cause for the universe and life to have come about.

I have stated my points of view. You have stated yours. I am not against you believing the things you want. So, why are you so adamant about getting me to believe things the way you want? Am I causing you to doubt your ideals so much that you need to prove me wrong just to hang onto your faith? Or do you think that if you don't land me I will be the big fish that got away? What is your reason?

[BADecker]

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If you can't conclude that

God can never be revealed in His entirety by the scientific method,

then you can't conclude that

He can be revealed in part by that method.

In other words, if you can't understand God in His entirety, then it's impossible to conclude that any "part" of God you might be witnessing is actually God.

Consequently, there is no amount of empirical evidence that can lead to a conclusion that God exists.

Why? (Of course, we are speaking of God, which makes things different than any example.) A crude example might be a car. We see the car, yet we see it only from one side at a time. A mechanic may know every last thing there is to know about an engine and transmission - even the metallurgy - yet he may know little or nothing about the fabrics that make up the upholstery, or the glass that makes up the windows.

Because it's a limitation of inductive reasoning.

Your car analogy doesn't work.  The reason the car analogy doesn't work is because a car can fit within the entirety of our scope of observation, whereas a monotheistic god cannot.

We know what a car is.  A car is a product of human invention and imagination, and so we know what the definition of a car is.  Accordingly, any time we actually see a car (i.e. we observed/evidenced it), then we can relate that observation back to the definition of a car.  Because the observation matches our known definition of what a car is, we can conclude that we are observing a car.

This doesn't work with God.  If God exists, he cannot be the product of human invention and imagination.  Accordingly, unlike the car, we are unable to start with any presumptions about what God may be.  So, it doesn't matter what evidence you find because you'll never be able to relate your observations back to a known definition of God so as to be able to conclude that the evidence is actually a part of God.

Edit:  Do you realize that, in using your car analogy, you were attempting to use a method of inductive reasoning similar to what's practiced via the scientific method?  Science forms hypotheses (i.e presumptions) which are then tested by evidence.  If the evidence supports the presumption, then the hypothesis holds.  For example, evidence is held against the hypothesis/theory of evolution to test whether the available evidence supports it.  You are trying to do the same thing by making a God "hypothesis", so-to-speak, and then holding up evidence against that hypothesis to see if your hypothesis holds.  However, in the same way that evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that evolution is correct at a 100% level of confidence, evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that God exists at a 100% level of confidence.

Edit 2:  I think it's imperative you understand this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

The problem of induction is the philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning leads to knowledge understood in the classic philosophical sense,[1] since it focuses on the lack of justification for either:

Generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class (for example, the inference that "all swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white," before the discovery of black swans) or
Presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold). Hume called this the principle of uniformity of nature.[2]
The problem calls into question all empirical claims made in everyday life or through the scientific method and for that reason the philosopher C. D. Broad said that "induction is the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy." Although the problem arguably dates back to the Pyrrhonism of ancient philosophy, as well as the Carvaka school of Indian philosophy, David Hume introduced it in the mid-18th century, with the most notable response provided by Karl Popper two centuries later.

I totally am NOT against science or scientists. What I am against is scientists using some scientific evidence or proof to extrapolate all kinds of things that can easily be extrapolated in multitudes of ways and directions using the same or other scientific evidence or proof. And what gets me is when they try to tell us that they have found the whole thing when they have merely extrapolated in a single direction of many. (Sorry if I didn't say that very well. Please try to get the idea of what I am talking about, anyway.)

It seems evident that we exist, even though we don't really have enough scientific evidence or proof - by a long shot - to make a determination that we do. Same with God, especially that the evidence that we do have, would have been planted here by Him if He DOES exists. We have nothing that I have seen, in ideas or philosophy or science (could easily have missed it, however) that suggests where we and the universe might have come from, that has nearly the strength of the God idea.

Stand everything that all of us have talked about in this thread side by side, and see which of them makes the most sense. To me, it is the God idea. And I am not talking Christianity here. I am simply talking God in one of the more vague dictionary definitions of the word.

I would agree with you that I, too, dislike when scientists or anyone else assert a conclusion with absolute certainty based upon empirical data.  Although, I think it's important to make a distinction between contexts in which the word 'prove' is acceptable in science vs. contexts in which it is not acceptable.  For example, while it is not acceptable to say that a scientific conclusion is proven beyond all doubt, it is acceptable to say that it is proven based upon the data that's available, and within a certain level of confidence (e.g. "The data supports the hypothesis, p < .05," indicating a 95% confidence level).  P < .05 is probably the most common standard used, although you'll see some studies which test hypotheses at other confidence levels (e.g p < .01, or a 99% confidence level).  The scientific method does not permit conclusions at a 100% confidence level.

Yes, it is self-evident that we exist, and you are correct that there is no conclusive, empirical evidence to support this.  Fortunately, we don't need any.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is the "same with God," as I wouldn't say that God is self-evident.  However, I would say that basically all of the ideas necessary to form a conclusion that God exists stem from that which is self-evident.

I would also agree that God seems the logical conclusion.

As a whole, this last post of yours seems much more reasonable than previous ones.

Thank you. I have deduced, if from nothing other than your adherence to the strict ideals regarding scientific investigation, and from the fact that you use two spaces between your sentences, that you are very experienced - from an old school.

You are probably correct in virtually all your debates with folks in here. It's just that we seem right sometimes, because we don't have your experience.

[bl4kjaguar]

I have stated my points of view. You have stated yours.

Actually, what I was looking for in this thread was proof.

Proof is an argument backed up by points; you made eight points which I refuted; as a result, I showed you that God's WORD is at least as legitimate as what you promote.

When I asked how you know that the Bible is superior, you said "I compare it with what the Bible says, and then I know."
You failed to quote the WORD in any way, so you did not really do as you say you did:

You called my truth a heresy; however, God denies that the recorded truth (in the published WORD) is a heresy:

"I do not fit the role as to Christian heretic for I do, in fact, travel about with the Christ in total Godness and therefore I certainly do not deviate in any iota from the whole Truth of the doctrine of God"

This is the same God that you called "the devil". I think that you are wrong and have insulted your brother; you took this discussion way too far. I do not feel so bad myself though. Actually, in the WORD it says that I should not pay attention to critics and attackers, and should not get involved in doctrinal quarrels, so I honestly have no good reason for having this talk with you.