", He/She would be unable to prove His/Her existence to such atheists"
Allmight....unable...
You don't see the problem with your own claim ?
No, no problem. Theologians decided many centuries ago that prefixing a meaningless statement with "Can God...?" doesn't make a meaningful question.
If a God really wanted to prove his existence to such atheists he would have no problem, about half of Genesis is full of him manipulating the thoughts and feelings of Pharao to make him act stupidly just to prove a point !
I wouldn't consider manipulating thoughts to be a proof. Rather, it gets around the need for proof, and they would no longer be "such atheists".
It says outright that faith must be based on nothing to be faith at all.
[citation needed]
This is what makes religious explanations by default unscientific. Religion by default rejects belief based on evidence
No, religion by default accepts belief based on evidence (Psalm 34:8). It just has accepts as evidence more than science does, and the additional things that they accept as evidence in very rare cases leads them to different conclusions.
God would have no problem making people belief if he so wished
Presumably true, if such a God existed.
or giving absolute and irrefutable proof if he so chose.
Probably not.
He chose instead to give a universe where we can trust very little - our common sense is mostly wrong
Actually, it's mostly right for things that matter to everyday life. Common sense tells me that if I'm hungry eating will make me feel better, that jumping off a cliff will hurt (at least) and so on. It's only on the more esoteric stuff that it's not so good.
our instinctive logic usually false
Again, it's usually true but there are a few situations it doesn't do well with.
and our senses prone to faillure and easy to fool.
But again are not usually fooled in everyday life -- not in ways that matter, anyway.
So we rely on multiple observations, technology and a process called the "scientific method" to study the universe and get reliable explanations about it since anything not based on lots of evidence and testing is almost always false.
[citation needed]
but if believing that makes you happy who am I to argue
Why do you assume I am religious? I find religion to be as full of bullshit as strong atheism, and I call it against both sides.
your holy book
My holy book? What would that be? If I could find a good text on modal logic I suppose it might be that.
It's about the same merit as your argument that because some do without it it's not essential to any. Simply, it matters to those running the farms, so although those working the farm don't use it, the viability of the farm they work on (and with that their jobs) probably depends on it.
"The internet is pretty much essential for those who work on the land, too."
Bollocks. Do you actually know any farmers? I do.
So do I. Quite a few of my family are farmers.
Believe me, when they're dipping the sheep they don't really care if they can access iPlayer or not.
And nor do I when I'm doing engineering consultancy. But farmers are in business, and a heavily regulated business at that, with very narrow margins. Ready and efficient access to suppliers, customers, regulators and funding bodies is likely to be the difference between profit and loss. That makes it essential.
The AC had an important point, though. What would they accept as "proof" of the existence of God? If they want scientific proof (as usually understood) of the Judeo-Christian God (as usually understood) then it's likely that it couldn't possibly exist. Any finite explanation of any set of observations would be simpler than an infinite God, and so would be preferred due to Ockham's razor. Some statements of the scientific method explicitly state that any explanation involving God or gods is to be rejected. So even if such a God existed, He/She would be unable to prove His/Her existence to such atheists. For those atheists "atheists will believe in a natural phenomenon like a god once there's proof he exists" is an empty statement because they understand "proof" in such a way as to make "proof he exists" an oxymoron.
The internet is pretty much essential for those who work on the land, too. Modern agriculture and husbandry isn't the world of Beatrix Potter any more. And the lack of internet hits other workers, too. The head office of the company I work for used to be in an area where they couldn't get broadband. It didn't matter when they were set up 30 years ago, but it matters now so they've relocated to somewhere that they can get access, moving jobs away from what was already a depressed area.
He will experience seeing moving pictures, and you would be wrong to tell him he doesn't.
OF COURSE. Why would I disagree with him if that were the only claim he made?
I see the problem now. You're saying that I would be wrong if I told religious people that they didn't hear a voice in their head. Well duh. Why would I ever object to that? Why would anyone object to that? That's not the "experience" they're claiming to have; the experience they claim to have is that "god spoke to them", or some crazy shit like that.
I swear, this is the stupidest strawman I've ever seen. That you seem to have built it unintentionally is just mind-boggling.
The experience they claim to have is hearing a voice. The interpretation is that it's God. It's not a strawman, because it goes to the heart of a fundamental problem of science: what counts as an observation. A good place to start would be the debate over classical foundationalism -- why it's flawed, and what attempts have been made to repair or replace it. You might also try checking out Karl Popper's arguments for why the distinction between science and metaphysics can only possibly be a social convention.
Unfortunately I'm now going to be AFK for a few days, so I will have to leave you to your own devices. But trust me (or research it), the issues are far more complicated and intractable than most people realise.
having an experience is one thing. but it is entirely irrational to assume that your experience points to the existence of an immortal, ominpotent being. that's a massive leap that is supported by no facts at all, and can only be supported by an irrational leap into 'faith'. The alternate theories to explain whatever experience you have that might even begin to point in that direction are prevalent, simple, and easy to understand in most cases.
And based on metaphysical assumptions that seem obvious to me and probably to you, but that don't seem obvious to religionists. If you change those assumptions then religion makes sense, and because they're metaphysical we can't prove them wrong. Yes, science does have metaphysical foundations: Popper (and others) pretty thoroughly demolished the positivists attempts to build a science without metaphysics.
But on the god side, We have billions claiming other billions are wrong about what they are experiencing and claiming THEIR own experience is the right one.
Are you sure they're disagreeing about what they experience, not about the interpretation of the experience? "God told me to do it." "No, it was Satan that told you!"
But now you have moved from "there is no evidence" to "there is a better explanation of the evidence"...
No, we're still on "there's no evidence". I'm not sure how you looked at "these people are hallucinating" and arrived at "there's evidence of gods".
"These people are hallucinating" is one explanation of the evidence. Another is that somebody has planted a walkie-talkie system in their room and is tricking them. Another is that magic head voices are real.
Do you think? If I now said to you "You don't actually believe that", would my words have any credibility?
You think that an experience and a belief are the same thing?
Please tell me you're being deliberately obtuse.
I think that belief can be based on experience. Don't you?
By the way, where is my supposed contradiction?
I quote:
If you tell somebody that they've not experienced what they've experienced it's you that's wrong (and it's not science)....
If you tell them that they have misinterpreted their experience then you might be on to something.
If their interpretation is wrong then they could not have experienced what they thought they experienced. If you sit a primitive tribesman in front of a TV, he will not experience magical pixies talking from inside of a box, regardless of what his personal interpretation may be.
He will experience seeing moving pictures, and you would be wrong to tell him he doesn't. If he interprets the moving pictures as magical pixies talking from inside of a box then you would be justified in questioning his interpretation of the experience.
Unless you're a fan of Deepak Chopra, you should have a pretty clear grasp of the idea that your perceptions do not actually effect reality.
Now, granted, I learned English as a second language, but I'm willing to bet any amount of money you care to wager that anyone with a solid understanding of the English language and basic logic would spot the contradiction immediately. ARE you a Chopra fan?
No, I'm not, though I have a major in English language with philosophy as a subsidiary subject, so I have some claim to "a solid understanding of the English language and basic logic". The problem seems to be that you are confusing experiences -- technically 'qualia' -- with interpretation of those experiences.
You really don't understand the foundations of science, do you?
I understand it just fine. You seem to be having some problems, though.
Well, up to then you'd just been making unfounded assertions and mocking those who disagree with you, which is common practice amongst those who believe something (science, religion, political dogma, etc.) without understanding it. But at least now we have:
Why do you prefer the explanation of mental illness over the explanation of magic voices in the head?
Occam's razor.
Yes, that is a possible reason for preferring one explanation over another, although it is one that is very selectively applied (used indiscriminately it leads to solipsism -- "no reality" is simpler than "one reality") but I suppose it's always best to apply a razor selectively. But now you have moved from "there is no evidence" to "there is a better explanation of the evidence", which is a different matter. By the way, what does Occam's razor actually tell you about the truth of competing explanations?
Many solid scientific theories seemed ridiculous before their time.
Not "many", no, unless you're considering the opinions of the average yokel. I can't think of a single "solid scientific theory [which] seemed ridiculous before [it's] time", but, for the sake of the argument, let's say there was. So what?
Not just the average yokel. I'm with Max Planck when he said “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”. I can't think of a major scientific breakthrough that wasn't first rejected, and usually mocked, by the previous generation of scientists.
Come back when you can tell me how science can distinguish between those explanations and why it should prefer one to the other.
Once you've made the claim that "telling people they didn't experience what they think they experienced" makes me "wrong", you've pretty much given up any right to be taken seriously, especially when you then went on to contradict yourself in the very next sentence. You need to get these concepts straight in your head and stop jumping around like a retarded rabbit on speed.
Do you think? If I now said to you "You don't actually believe that", would my words have any credibility? No, because you know what you actually believe; nobody else can possibly know what's going on inside your mind, the best they can do is make an informed judgement based on what you report and on their model of the world. By the way, where is my supposed contradiction? Do you believe that there is no distinction between an experience and the interpretation of the experience?
So magic head voices, god, and talking ducks have evidence of roughly equal weight in terms of any objective, verifiable weight.
You have now introduced the word "objective". That wasn't in the discussion before. The question of what actually counts as "objective" is fraught and is still not resolved in science (and as far as I am aware nobody has yet come up with an answer to there being no objective evidence of consciousness). The best models I am aware of consider that true objectivity cannot actually exist: the best you can claim is that evidence is more objective or less objective than other evidence. The distinction is important because...
I do understand your point, and it's technically valid, but at a level I think you'd have to be a linguistic or an asberger's patient to appreciate it. The Evidence is so vanishingly weak it is, for all intents and purposes, negligible. The assertions of people raised within certain belief systems notwithstanding, there is no evidence for God.
If you have the experience then you have evidence (not objective evidence), and it is rational to take that evidence into account, in addition to the testimony of those who do not have the experience but have alternative explanations of why you might have the experience. Most of us take most of our everyday decisions based entirely on subjective evidence. When I cross the road in the morning I do not call for a double-blind trial of whether there is a car coming. My subjective evidence that there isn't suffices. Similarly for the religious the subjective evidence they have of God might suffice, and that is not necessarily irrational. Second-hand religion is more problematic, but then most of what I believe about quantum mechanics I believe second hand based (usually indirectly) on the eye-witness (ie, subjective) accounts of those who have seen the relevant experiments (and no, not all of that stuff has made its way into technology yet).
Good enough for normal life. Not good enough for science. The heliocentric model of the solar system was "obviously false", until it turned out to be true.
Religious experiences are caused by unusual brain states, not communing with God.
That is your belief. It is not the belief of the religious.
You can very reliably induce the same state of mind many claim to associate with "feeling god" by various drugs, and oxygen deprivation.
That's better. Now you are moving on from "there is no evidence" to "here is a reason I prefer an alternative explanation of the evidence". (It's not a particularly strong reason, though: something similar can be said of the state of mind many claim to associate with "feeling hunger". Any logician can tell you that the move from "x can be caused by y to "x cannot be caused by z because z is not y" is questionable.)
You really don't understand the foundations of science, do you? Why would a judge reject testimony that "I saw the accused murder the victim, right before he turned into a Green Lizard from Alpha Centauri"? There is a reason, and there's even a good scientific reason (which might or might not be the same as the judge's reason). But unless you dig down to what those reasons are, and what the strengths and weaknesses of those reasons are, then your bluster about science is just as much blind dogma as the religionist's bluster about God. Why do you prefer the explanation of mental illness over the explanation of magic voices in the head? Just saying that one seems ridiculous isn't good enough: somebody who disagrees can say that it's your view that seems ridiculous to them. Do you think science is just a vote on how many people find which account ridiculous? Many solid scientific theories seemed ridiculous before their time. Come back when you can tell me how science can distinguish between those explanations and why it should prefer one to the other.
People claiming they hear voices is not evidence in favor of magic head-voices. It's evidence, but of mental illness.
It's evidence of both (and of other things). It's a pretty basic tenet of science that all evidence is open to multiple interpretations. The question is, how do you decide which interpretation of the evidence to prefer?
Testimony is evidence. Ask any court. If you tell somebody that they've not experienced what they've experienced it's you that's wrong (and it's not science). If you tell them that they have misinterpreted their experience then you might be on to something.
It's much older. The Catolic vulgate and it's interpretation already were a problem for people like Galileo.
Not as much as is usually thought. At the time of Galileo the heliocentric model of the solar system was considered a long outdated and discredited view, although Copernicus had reawakened it in his De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium (commissioned by the Church and dedicated -- with permission -- to the Pope). When Galileo started teaching it in (Church) schools as an unquestionable fact (rather than as a theory) he was called to account for himself, and instead of providing evidence for what he was teaching he started bad-mouthing everybody (including writing a tract that called the Pope a "simpleton" for wanting evidence). Other top scientists of the time (notably Francis Bacon) rejected Galileo's theories as unscientific. Copernicus had showed that the Church had no problem with the theory apparently contradicting scripture, and Cardinal Bellarmine (a senior member of the sacred college) wrote "I say that if a real proof be found that the sun is fixed and does not revolve round the earth, but the earth round the sun, then it will be necessary, very carefully, to proceed to the explanation of the passages of Scripture which appear to be contrary, and we should rather say that we have misunderstood these than pronounce that to be false which is demonstrated."
So it is true that a literal interpretation of the Bible was the preferred interpretation at the time, but it's not true that the Bible was placed above scientific observation, nor is it true that that was the problem Galileo ran into. Rather, Galileo's problem was that he behaved as a stereotypical crank scientist and so was taken to be one.
One day, you'll be able to recognize, and accept, that there is no evidence for the existence of a God.
Not so. You are confusing evidence with proof. There is plenty of evidence for the existence of God (the "religious experience", for example), but it is not compelling evidence, and the scientifically minded favour other explanations of it. It does the scientific position no favours to misrepresent it, because the religious will see that what you are presenting is obviously false and think from that that the scientific position is obviously false.
secondly, you have prepended "fundamentalist" to the phrase "evangelical christian". evangelical and fundamentalism are not necessarily the same thing.
That is why he had to say both. Had he thought they were the same thing then prepending "fundamentalist" to the phrase "evangelical christian" would have been redundant.
not necessarily, in a proper functioning democracy, the electorate would kick the gov's ass if they tried blocking twitter cos' they allowed the riots, etc.
No, in a properly functioning democracy the electorate would decide whether they prefer bread and circuses to an uninterrupted Twitter feed and might well choose the former.
Slashdot Mirror
If it is vital to their job, they already have it, or they wouldnt have a job
They're not competitive with places that have it. They can hold out, but will slowly go under.
(and I would argue relying on it in an area of poor infrastructure is a really bad decision).
Yes, it's so daft having farms in rural areas, isn't it? They'd be so much more efficient in city centres.
Farmers have been doing this stuff for centuries without internet, and continue to to this day.
Again, you don't seem to understand how much farming has changed.
", He/She would be unable to prove His/Her existence to such atheists"
Allmight....unable... You don't see the problem with your own claim ?
No, no problem. Theologians decided many centuries ago that prefixing a meaningless statement with "Can God...?" doesn't make a meaningful question.
If a God really wanted to prove his existence to such atheists he would have no problem, about half of Genesis is full of him manipulating the thoughts and feelings of Pharao to make him act stupidly just to prove a point !
I wouldn't consider manipulating thoughts to be a proof. Rather, it gets around the need for proof, and they would no longer be "such atheists".
It says outright that faith must be based on nothing to be faith at all.
[citation needed]
This is what makes religious explanations by default unscientific. Religion by default rejects belief based on evidence
No, religion by default accepts belief based on evidence (Psalm 34:8). It just has accepts as evidence more than science does, and the additional things that they accept as evidence in very rare cases leads them to different conclusions.
God would have no problem making people belief if he so wished
Presumably true, if such a God existed.
or giving absolute and irrefutable proof if he so chose.
Probably not.
He chose instead to give a universe where we can trust very little - our common sense is mostly wrong
Actually, it's mostly right for things that matter to everyday life. Common sense tells me that if I'm hungry eating will make me feel better, that jumping off a cliff will hurt (at least) and so on. It's only on the more esoteric stuff that it's not so good.
our instinctive logic usually false
Again, it's usually true but there are a few situations it doesn't do well with.
and our senses prone to faillure and easy to fool.
But again are not usually fooled in everyday life -- not in ways that matter, anyway.
So we rely on multiple observations, technology and a process called the "scientific method" to study the universe and get reliable explanations about it since anything not based on lots of evidence and testing is almost always false.
[citation needed]
but if believing that makes you happy who am I to argue
Why do you assume I am religious? I find religion to be as full of bullshit as strong atheism, and I call it against both sides.
your holy book
My holy book? What would that be? If I could find a good text on modal logic I suppose it might be that.
It's about the same merit as your argument that because some do without it it's not essential to any. Simply, it matters to those running the farms, so although those working the farm don't use it, the viability of the farm they work on (and with that their jobs) probably depends on it.
"The internet is pretty much essential for those who work on the land, too."
Bollocks. Do you actually know any farmers? I do.
So do I. Quite a few of my family are farmers.
Believe me, when they're dipping the sheep they don't really care if they can access iPlayer or not.
And nor do I when I'm doing engineering consultancy. But farmers are in business, and a heavily regulated business at that, with very narrow margins. Ready and efficient access to suppliers, customers, regulators and funding bodies is likely to be the difference between profit and loss. That makes it essential.
Logo was designed with pretty much this age group in mind, wasn't it?
The AC had an important point, though. What would they accept as "proof" of the existence of God? If they want scientific proof (as usually understood) of the Judeo-Christian God (as usually understood) then it's likely that it couldn't possibly exist. Any finite explanation of any set of observations would be simpler than an infinite God, and so would be preferred due to Ockham's razor. Some statements of the scientific method explicitly state that any explanation involving God or gods is to be rejected. So even if such a God existed, He/She would be unable to prove His/Her existence to such atheists. For those atheists "atheists will believe in a natural phenomenon like a god once there's proof he exists" is an empty statement because they understand "proof" in such a way as to make "proof he exists" an oxymoron.
The internet is pretty much essential for those who work on the land, too. Modern agriculture and husbandry isn't the world of Beatrix Potter any more. And the lack of internet hits other workers, too. The head office of the company I work for used to be in an area where they couldn't get broadband. It didn't matter when they were set up 30 years ago, but it matters now so they've relocated to somewhere that they can get access, moving jobs away from what was already a depressed area.
Depends on the route you take. It's probably Planet Express doing the deliveries.
None of them will have any atmosphere, though.
Perhaps you've forgotten: During 1979, Carter deregulated the American beer industry by opening access of the home-brew market back up to the craft brewers, making it again legal to sell malt, hops, and yeast to American home brewers for the since the effective 1920 beginning of Prohibition in the United States.. (Don't blame me for the grammar.)
There are specialist websites for that,,,
He will experience seeing moving pictures, and you would be wrong to tell him he doesn't.
OF COURSE. Why would I disagree with him if that were the only claim he made?
I see the problem now. You're saying that I would be wrong if I told religious people that they didn't hear a voice in their head. Well duh. Why would I ever object to that? Why would anyone object to that? That's not the "experience" they're claiming to have; the experience they claim to have is that "god spoke to them", or some crazy shit like that.
I swear, this is the stupidest strawman I've ever seen. That you seem to have built it unintentionally is just mind-boggling.
The experience they claim to have is hearing a voice. The interpretation is that it's God. It's not a strawman, because it goes to the heart of a fundamental problem of science: what counts as an observation. A good place to start would be the debate over classical foundationalism -- why it's flawed, and what attempts have been made to repair or replace it. You might also try checking out Karl Popper's arguments for why the distinction between science and metaphysics can only possibly be a social convention.
Unfortunately I'm now going to be AFK for a few days, so I will have to leave you to your own devices. But trust me (or research it), the issues are far more complicated and intractable than most people realise.
having an experience is one thing. but it is entirely irrational to assume that your experience points to the existence of an immortal, ominpotent being. that's a massive leap that is supported by no facts at all, and can only be supported by an irrational leap into 'faith'. The alternate theories to explain whatever experience you have that might even begin to point in that direction are prevalent, simple, and easy to understand in most cases.
And based on metaphysical assumptions that seem obvious to me and probably to you, but that don't seem obvious to religionists. If you change those assumptions then religion makes sense, and because they're metaphysical we can't prove them wrong. Yes, science does have metaphysical foundations: Popper (and others) pretty thoroughly demolished the positivists attempts to build a science without metaphysics.
But on the god side, We have billions claiming other billions are wrong about what they are experiencing and claiming THEIR own experience is the right one.
Are you sure they're disagreeing about what they experience, not about the interpretation of the experience? "God told me to do it." "No, it was Satan that told you!"
But now you have moved from "there is no evidence" to "there is a better explanation of the evidence"...
No, we're still on "there's no evidence". I'm not sure how you looked at "these people are hallucinating" and arrived at "there's evidence of gods".
"These people are hallucinating" is one explanation of the evidence. Another is that somebody has planted a walkie-talkie system in their room and is tricking them. Another is that magic head voices are real.
Do you think? If I now said to you "You don't actually believe that", would my words have any credibility?
You think that an experience and a belief are the same thing?
Please tell me you're being deliberately obtuse.
I think that belief can be based on experience. Don't you?
By the way, where is my supposed contradiction?
I quote:
If you tell somebody that they've not experienced what they've experienced it's you that's wrong (and it's not science). ...
If you tell them that they have misinterpreted their experience then you might be on to something.
If their interpretation is wrong then they could not have experienced what they thought they experienced. If you sit a primitive tribesman in front of a TV, he will not experience magical pixies talking from inside of a box, regardless of what his personal interpretation may be.
He will experience seeing moving pictures, and you would be wrong to tell him he doesn't. If he interprets the moving pictures as magical pixies talking from inside of a box then you would be justified in questioning his interpretation of the experience.
Unless you're a fan of Deepak Chopra, you should have a pretty clear grasp of the idea that your perceptions do not actually effect reality.
Now, granted, I learned English as a second language, but I'm willing to bet any amount of money you care to wager that anyone with a solid understanding of the English language and basic logic would spot the contradiction immediately. ARE you a Chopra fan?
No, I'm not, though I have a major in English language with philosophy as a subsidiary subject, so I have some claim to "a solid understanding of the English language and basic logic". The problem seems to be that you are confusing experiences -- technically 'qualia' -- with interpretation of those experiences.
You really don't understand the foundations of science, do you?
I understand it just fine. You seem to be having some problems, though.
Well, up to then you'd just been making unfounded assertions and mocking those who disagree with you, which is common practice amongst those who believe something (science, religion, political dogma, etc.) without understanding it. But at least now we have:
Why do you prefer the explanation of mental illness over the explanation of magic voices in the head?
Occam's razor.
Yes, that is a possible reason for preferring one explanation over another, although it is one that is very selectively applied (used indiscriminately it leads to solipsism -- "no reality" is simpler than "one reality") but I suppose it's always best to apply a razor selectively. But now you have moved from "there is no evidence" to "there is a better explanation of the evidence", which is a different matter. By the way, what does Occam's razor actually tell you about the truth of competing explanations?
Many solid scientific theories seemed ridiculous before their time.
Not "many", no, unless you're considering the opinions of the average yokel. I can't think of a single "solid scientific theory [which] seemed ridiculous before [it's] time", but, for the sake of the argument, let's say there was. So what?
Not just the average yokel. I'm with Max Planck when he said “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”. I can't think of a major scientific breakthrough that wasn't first rejected, and usually mocked, by the previous generation of scientists.
Come back when you can tell me how science can distinguish between those explanations and why it should prefer one to the other.
Once you've made the claim that "telling people they didn't experience what they think they experienced" makes me "wrong", you've pretty much given up any right to be taken seriously, especially when you then went on to contradict yourself in the very next sentence. You need to get these concepts straight in your head and stop jumping around like a retarded rabbit on speed.
Do you think? If I now said to you "You don't actually believe that", would my words have any credibility? No, because you know what you actually believe; nobody else can possibly know what's going on inside your mind, the best they can do is make an informed judgement based on what you report and on their model of the world. By the way, where is my supposed contradiction? Do you believe that there is no distinction between an experience and the interpretation of the experience?
So magic head voices, god, and talking ducks have evidence of roughly equal weight in terms of any objective, verifiable weight.
You have now introduced the word "objective". That wasn't in the discussion before. The question of what actually counts as "objective" is fraught and is still not resolved in science (and as far as I am aware nobody has yet come up with an answer to there being no objective evidence of consciousness). The best models I am aware of consider that true objectivity cannot actually exist: the best you can claim is that evidence is more objective or less objective than other evidence. The distinction is important because...
I do understand your point, and it's technically valid, but at a level I think you'd have to be a linguistic or an asberger's patient to appreciate it. The Evidence is so vanishingly weak it is, for all intents and purposes, negligible. The assertions of people raised within certain belief systems notwithstanding, there is no evidence for God.
If you have the experience then you have evidence (not objective evidence), and it is rational to take that evidence into account, in addition to the testimony of those who do not have the experience but have alternative explanations of why you might have the experience. Most of us take most of our everyday decisions based entirely on subjective evidence. When I cross the road in the morning I do not call for a double-blind trial of whether there is a car coming. My subjective evidence that there isn't suffices. Similarly for the religious the subjective evidence they have of God might suffice, and that is not necessarily irrational. Second-hand religion is more problematic, but then most of what I believe about quantum mechanics I believe second hand based (usually indirectly) on the eye-witness (ie, subjective) accounts of those who have seen the relevant experiments (and no, not all of that stuff has made its way into technology yet).
"Obviously false"?
Good enough for normal life. Not good enough for science. The heliocentric model of the solar system was "obviously false", until it turned out to be true.
Religious experiences are caused by unusual brain states, not communing with God.
That is your belief. It is not the belief of the religious.
You can very reliably induce the same state of mind many claim to associate with "feeling god" by various drugs, and oxygen deprivation.
That's better. Now you are moving on from "there is no evidence" to "here is a reason I prefer an alternative explanation of the evidence". (It's not a particularly strong reason, though: something similar can be said of the state of mind many claim to associate with "feeling hunger". Any logician can tell you that the move from "x can be caused by y to "x cannot be caused by z because z is not y" is questionable.)
You really don't understand the foundations of science, do you? Why would a judge reject testimony that "I saw the accused murder the victim, right before he turned into a Green Lizard from Alpha Centauri"? There is a reason, and there's even a good scientific reason (which might or might not be the same as the judge's reason). But unless you dig down to what those reasons are, and what the strengths and weaknesses of those reasons are, then your bluster about science is just as much blind dogma as the religionist's bluster about God. Why do you prefer the explanation of mental illness over the explanation of magic voices in the head? Just saying that one seems ridiculous isn't good enough: somebody who disagrees can say that it's your view that seems ridiculous to them. Do you think science is just a vote on how many people find which account ridiculous? Many solid scientific theories seemed ridiculous before their time. Come back when you can tell me how science can distinguish between those explanations and why it should prefer one to the other.
People claiming they hear voices is not evidence in favor of magic head-voices. It's evidence, but of mental illness.
It's evidence of both (and of other things). It's a pretty basic tenet of science that all evidence is open to multiple interpretations. The question is, how do you decide which interpretation of the evidence to prefer?
No. Anecdotes are not evidence.
Testimony is evidence. Ask any court. If you tell somebody that they've not experienced what they've experienced it's you that's wrong (and it's not science). If you tell them that they have misinterpreted their experience then you might be on to something.
Let's call a spade a spade.
Indeed, let's. And let's not call it a JCB.
It's much older. The Catolic vulgate and it's interpretation already were a problem for people like Galileo.
Not as much as is usually thought. At the time of Galileo the heliocentric model of the solar system was considered a long outdated and discredited view, although Copernicus had reawakened it in his De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium (commissioned by the Church and dedicated -- with permission -- to the Pope). When Galileo started teaching it in (Church) schools as an unquestionable fact (rather than as a theory) he was called to account for himself, and instead of providing evidence for what he was teaching he started bad-mouthing everybody (including writing a tract that called the Pope a "simpleton" for wanting evidence). Other top scientists of the time (notably Francis Bacon) rejected Galileo's theories as unscientific. Copernicus had showed that the Church had no problem with the theory apparently contradicting scripture, and Cardinal Bellarmine (a senior member of the sacred college) wrote "I say that if a real proof be found that the sun is fixed and does not revolve round the earth, but the earth round the sun, then it will be necessary, very carefully, to proceed to the explanation of the passages of Scripture which appear to be contrary, and we should rather say that we have misunderstood these than pronounce that to be false which is demonstrated."
So it is true that a literal interpretation of the Bible was the preferred interpretation at the time, but it's not true that the Bible was placed above scientific observation, nor is it true that that was the problem Galileo ran into. Rather, Galileo's problem was that he behaved as a stereotypical crank scientist and so was taken to be one.
One day, you'll be able to recognize, and accept, that there is no evidence for the existence of a God.
Not so. You are confusing evidence with proof. There is plenty of evidence for the existence of God (the "religious experience", for example), but it is not compelling evidence, and the scientifically minded favour other explanations of it. It does the scientific position no favours to misrepresent it, because the religious will see that what you are presenting is obviously false and think from that that the scientific position is obviously false.
secondly, you have prepended "fundamentalist" to the phrase "evangelical christian". evangelical and fundamentalism are not necessarily the same thing.
That is why he had to say both. Had he thought they were the same thing then prepending "fundamentalist" to the phrase "evangelical christian" would have been redundant.
That's not a small number.
It's a small proportion of the Christians worldwide. The parent poster did point out (correctly, I believe) that they were concentrated in the USA.
not necessarily, in a proper functioning democracy, the electorate would kick the gov's ass if they tried blocking twitter cos' they allowed the riots, etc.
No, in a properly functioning democracy the electorate would decide whether they prefer bread and circuses to an uninterrupted Twitter feed and might well choose the former.