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Originally Posted by Dasha
What viable proof do we have that God really exists? Is there any?
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Religious beliefs require faith, hence, no elaborate proofs are needed that would be needed for science. There is some and that some is what each of the religious followers would have.
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Originally Posted by Dasha
The feelings you get from worship. Reading the bible. When praying. Sharing your faith. Coming to the Lord. Are they from God?
Those can just be counted as chemical reactions from the brain and not actual feelings from God. We naturally feel good when someone believes in us, why not the same feeling when we believe in someone?
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This is true, it may not be from god one bit, however, if you are a believer in god then you're likely to assume it is from god and not from something else. Usually this is seen more in a large group of praying or singing biblical songs, everyone gets all excited, believes it's god because that's part of their religious paradigm, etc... . It's a great example of the placebo effect.
For your second question, when someone believes in us, then we carry our weight plus their weight, it's a sign of immense trust that makes us feel good. We don't get that sensation as much when we believe in someone else (i.e. a human) because it's no self-fulfilling for us. It's self-fulfilling for the person we're believing in.
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Originally Posted by Dasha
How about miracles? A friend or loved one mysteriously healed from a sickness. Someone you know got hit by a bus and survived. There is more food in the pantry than yesterday. You passed a test you didn't study for. Are they really just miracles?
Humans are exceptional, we don't even know everything about ourselves. Our body is constantly healing itself and has the means to come back from almost every physical attack. Its only when we don't eat healthy does the body not have what it needs to heal and protect itself. And when we don't have what we need, our brains wont remember every thing. Like the fact that you were half asleep when you saw the pantry and your brain didn't pick it all up, or that you actually talked about the test last week.
In the bible days it seems people had actual miracles to believe in. I mean, things happening in front of their own eyes that could not be explained. Food left on the porch this morning means someone could have dropped if off. Food left back then was done right in front of their eyes. They literally never saw the bottom of bags, saw someone immediately recover from sickness, saw water turned to wine! Where are those miracles today? Did the bible lie?
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Some of the issues with healing from a sickness can be explained by investigating the person more. Did they have another disease that combatted the first? Did they take some natural herbs that did something? Did they take some medications or got exposed to a certain environmental condition? Did they have some genetic disorder (i.e. doesn't have to be one that is very noticable on the outside).
For the water to wine stuff, a possible way for that is to drink normal water but have the scent of wine at the same time. Do so and you're likely to taste wine. But for water to chemically change into wine magically, that I don't believe.
The bible may have lied but then again, consider the fact that our technology and amount of scientific knowledge is far more than what is was back then. Perhaps back then they found the way to make water taste like wine and of course without investigating it more, one could conclude the water transformed to wine. Did it really? No. Does it seem like it did? Perhaps.
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Originally Posted by Dasha
Is there any real physical proof that God really exists? That he is not some figment of our imaginations?
Or do all we have is faith? What if we put that faith in the wrong God? Are we still condemned to hell? How can we know which God is real?
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The proof for God's existence is within one's faith. I don't consider the bible to be proof of his existence because he did not write it, humans did. I view it as being all in our heads.
For your other questions, this brings up the idea of Pascal's Wager.
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Originally Posted by Oiseau the Little Bird!
Explain statues crying blood or people's cancer suddenly disappearing into full remission. -shrug- Science that up for me.
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The burden of proof is on you to show that the statues actually did cry blood, not some random person's sworn testimony but physical proof that it did. Until then, no such thing occurred.
For the cancer part, you can have other diseases to somewhat counter cancer. Granted, both diseases harm you regardless but one may work against the other. But another reason, cancer can go into remission by itself. It's not a random miracle or anything like that but it's down to the biological aspects. Cancer is essentially when the cell processes get mutated and growth goes beyond normal. If a person happens to have altered proteins and genes that the cancer has trouble mutating, then the cancer can eventually go into remission.
However, cancer is still being heavily researched, so many of the answers we still don't know. If you want a more immediate answer that works to please you, then slap it on with religion. If you want the biological reasons, which may not please you and will take more time, then go with science.