Experiences of God are no evidence of God. Then I could say my dream last night was evidence of God. Which it isn't. It was just a dream. I can wrap it up in a Christian-Judeo-Islamic tradition but that doesn't make the evidence stronger. Anyone can say every experience is evidence of God. Every schizophrenic could in fact say to have a direct contact with God. But we consider them mentally ill. Why should they be ill though? In an asylum I met this little guy running around with the bible all day. It was a funny sight. The bible looked huge, compared to his miniscule body. The bible gave him power and he told me about his nighttime encounters with God, in isolation.

If we conjecture two mutually attached substances, matter and soul, all problems are solved! Imagine what it is to be an elementary particle. If it didn't have soul, how why should it reach out for other particles? After their excitation into a temporally unidirectional real state from the temporally fluctuating virtual state, they constantly reached out to other particles by coupling to the timeless omnipresent virtual fields, forming increasingly complex beings (dissipative complex systems evolution between alternating heat sources) on the soothing and mitigating environments of universal planets.

But we don't have any theories that are 'optimal, perfect and rational' explanations and descriptions of the world, — Theorem

That depends on your attitude towards the theory. Every law we have can be said to be optimal, perfect and rational in its domain of applicability.

I remember! Shhhhhhhhh.... :wink:

It's the majority view in physics. Real particles are excitations of fields and virtual particles are fluctuations. The real particles are what we observe in the lab, in scattering processes, while virtual particles are just mathematical trickery to calculate what we observe in relation to the real particles. Now if this were so then also real particles would be math.

What is an excitation? A field is just a mathematical aid which consists of distributions assigned to all points of spacetime, and these distributions have operators as "value". These operators are creation and annihilation operators. These operators create or annihilate one particle states in so-called Fock-space, a direct product of single particle Hilbert spaces. A free particle field is just a particle with a single momentum state or, when localized, a normalized superposition of a spectrum. In a Feynman diagram, there is one line only and begin and end state have the same momentum. The particle is localized if it has a spectrum of momenta. If it has a well defined position though there are infinite associated momenta, due to uncertainty.

There are no such things as pointparticles, no creation and destruction of particles (only couplings), and the virtual particle math scheme is referring to something real. One week ago I actually got suspended for a week on a physics forum because I argued against point particles, the existence preons, the existence of hidden variables, and real existence of virtual particles (which real particles are in fact too, but with related E and p). Low quality contribution. Of course. From the mainstream POV.

So, what is a particle? A particle is a tiny geometrical Planck-sized structure on which charge can safely reside, without leaking out. The extra space dimensions in which it exists are perpendicular to the 3D bulk and this ensures that the Planck length is Lorenz invariant (for which physics still has no answer...). The smallest measurable distance (the Planck length) follows naturally from the particles small extension in space. Within the bounds of the wavefunction (the temporal cross section of a field) the particle just hops around erratically if you propagate it in time. Which is to say it travels on tiny parts of all paths Feynman talks about, coupling to the timeless virtual field to reach others, and being itself a time extended virtual particle with its antiparticle component somewhere in space.

The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. — Andrew4Handel

And here he is wrong. At the bottom we see love and hate in purest form. The cause of hunger, war, environmental issues are Xenophanes and his admirer Plato. All misery in the world is retractable to those two founders of modern thinking. If only they knew. Would they have given up their place in history? I bet they wouldn't.

We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. — Albert Einstein

And here, dear 180booze, I agree. We can't use science for solving the problems it created.

Well according to Richard Dawkins — Andrew4Handel

...we and all creatures on Earth are vessels of genes and memes taking orders from them to procreate them. What a silly meme. Maybe that's because he himself is silly.

For example, many environmentalists will use fear-based tactics in order to cause many people to panic. — stressyandmessy

But the fear is justified. That's not the case with gods punishing us in the afterlife. Who says there is an afterlife? Probably we just get reincarnated.

What's the dis advantage of believing in gods, the only rational explanation of the universe, which is proof for their existence? Ignoring this evidence is ignoring rational thought.

There he is, Pascal's wager! Thanks!

God is an all-loving being — stressyandmessy

Who says so? Maybe they are just like all creatures in the universe. Struggling, loving, hating, fighting, accidentally firing up a cigarette with the wrong match that god-children are not allowed to light.

"whosoever offends thee shall answer to me!" — universeness

That's a good one, universeness! Sometimes the duo-pact seems human even. What you paint?

Old Wet-gun-sign — lll

Ah! Wet-gun-sign! Only now I see! :wink:

Like Lack A. Toss told Fire A. Bent: Nut Anni Thing, ghost!

This is fun!

Righdijo! Necks time!

Thanks! Old Wet-gun-sign talked about a philosophy made of jokes, and I think word play can just maybe show wet cannot be sad. — lll

Sounds a new light shining light into some pretty serious darkness showing itself here sometimes. Keep it shining!

To be fair, I've enjoyed posts by both of you, so the misunderstanding seems unfortunate and is hopefully temporary. — lll

Sure, but it sometimes leads to nice postings... Straight from the hurt!

Reading your posts, you got a way with words! Great!

There's also an 'on and on I' hiding in there. — lll

Thanks fellow member. He asked for it... So I answered. He indeed goes onanon!

D-K morons are often onanistic too Just saying, kid ... — 180 Proof

I loooove to onanonanate! Thinking about MWI... It turns me on!

it's a matter then of assessing how convincing the evidence is. — Tom Storm

Which depends on the one using it. There is no legally framed evidence as in court: "Your honor, Exhibit X is clear evidence the accused was near the crime scene that night. He can't have created the universe". "Objection! Your honor, I haven't been informed about exhibit X!" Etcetera...

Yeah, I remember. CMB...

It means the many worlds interpretation. I brought it on for 180booze especially... I knew he would react.

although Descartes thought that he was able to. — Angelo Cannata

If Descartes could, it's good enough for us. Be it Cartesian reality, physical reality, religious reality, or mental reality, we can always inform other people. There is more than one reality. Every group of persons has its own objective reality.

Stupidity is exemplified by calling things you do not (cannot?) understand "stupid". — 180 Proof

Is that why you wrote :100: x :100: ?

The only reason I call the MWI stupid is because I understand it! And it shows you don't or can't. :rofl:

Stupidity is exemplified by calling things you do not (cannot?) understand "stupid" — 180 Proof

Stupid!

What would the reverse of modus ponens look like?

1. If p then q
2. p
Ergo,
3. q — Agent Smith

q .3
,ogrE
p .2
q neht p fi .1

My belief is that stupidity is easier spread and accepted than knowledge, and insisting on giving stupid theories a fair chance for acceptance is even stupider than the theories themselves. — god must be atheist

Exactly! Especially weird stupìdity like the MWI in quantum mechanics, accepted by some Nobel Prizers.

I think the question for atheism is not the lack of evidence for god/s so much as the reliability of the evidence provided. — Tom Storm

Isn't that the same? If the evidence is not reliable, is it good evidence then?

It doesn't get much more problematic than constructing certainty out of something so evanescent. — Tom Storm

I agree, though at the same time, what we build certainty on can collapse like a rotten wooden bridge. Or evaporate like alcohol.

Still, if someone has experienced God directly within a religious tradition, it seems to me it would make faith in the tenets of that tradition a reasonable response. — T Clark

It seems a reasonable response. Yes. But is that evidence?

I was wondering about that reverse I gave. But in your snenop sudom, what is the reverse ot ergo and if...then? Then...if, and ??

We have q. It traces back to p. So? p and q?

!!!GNIT GNIT GNIT...

Eurt si B neht A fo trap si B dna eurt si A fi

People say there is no evidence for God, but there is. — T Clark

Then what's the evidence? A personal experience? God talking to us in our mind? What's your measure of evidence? Someone saying he/she has seen them?

Fairy dust is like dark matter. The only evidence that it exists is that all our theories will be wrong unless it does. — T Clark

That's all the evidence it needs. But the fact that time doesn't run backwards isn't evidence that it can't run backwards or that angel dust is required. Though our theories would indeed be wrong if it didn't existed.

How did he know to stretch out his hand just at that moment? — unenlightened

The boy would be reverse thinking. The effect would have become the cause.

Fairy dust is like dark matter. The only evidence that it exists is that all our theories will be wrong unless it does.
6h — T Clark

Dark matter is not fairy dust. It is a real substance not proving that our theories need mending, a god of the gaps stuff. It is just dark because we don't see it. It could be primordial black holes. Normal matter could constitute a time going backwards. If all matter in our universe had exactly the opposite motion, time would run backwards. It's not a matter of chance that time runs forward. It's a matter of initial configuration.

There you go...

How can he prove she's omnipotent?

Ha! Yes! So God is human after all!