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Religion
In reply to the discussion: There is no evidence for the existence of God. [View all]DetlefK
(16,456 posts)15. Challenge accepted. That's a fairly simple philosophical riddle.
Think of this universe, the one we live in, as one room in a house. A room with no currently observable doors or windows. A room from which, at this point, we cannot leave.
What could we reasonably say about the other rooms?
What could we say about what exists in the other rooms? Or does not exist?
What could we say about how our universe is affected by other universes?
What could we reasonably say about the other rooms?
What could we say about what exists in the other rooms? Or does not exist?
What could we say about how our universe is affected by other universes?
That's actually fairly easy: As we do not observe doors, doors do not exist with 100% certainty.
But, is it at least probable that the room has doors?
Yes.
But how probable?
For that we have math:
You take your experimental data (the observed room) and mix it with the prediction of a theoretical model (the hypothetical room containing doors) to calculate a Chi²-value that symbolizes how well they match to each other. The bigger the Chi²-value, the bigger the difference between experiment and theory. From the Chi²-value we can calculate without any further ado exactly how probable it is for the theory to be true. (There's Wikipedia and math-books if you want to go into details.)
We can do that for a room and for doors. We can not do that for God: What would this prediction of our theoretical model be? What is the theoretical prediction what a world with a God would be like?
Not only is there no evidence for God, we don't even know what COUNTS as evidence for God. Meaning: We are speculating about rooms and doors without knowing what a door is, what it looks like and what it's good for.
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I will say this, I find most of what you say and do on this website to be sincere.
Eliot Rosewater
Nov 2018
#3
We can define what would constitute evidence of other universes, but not of God
marylandblue
Nov 2018
#40
You are assuming that your perception is a reality. You say there are zillions of suns. Saying so
Doodley
Nov 2018
#107
How do you know they are real maps, and not simply part of a world that only exists in mind?
Doodley
Nov 2018
#112
Or assume that because there is no evidence here, there is no evidence. eom
guillaumeb
Nov 2018
#145
One can assume that until the existence of other rooms is demonstrated. (nt)
LongtimeAZDem
Nov 2018
#146
No, you supplied plenty of it. And now you are making up an implication and saying that I did it.
guillaumeb
Nov 2018
#153