TO believe that only what is material or physical is or can be real can also be the result of circular reasoning. You look only at the object of the belief, ie God, and not at how the belief is formed or maintained.
- Let's consider this. Do I believe that "only what is material or physical is or can be real"? No. I do not begin with any such presumption. I am perfectly willing to accept that there could be something other than material reality. But if you want me to believe that there actually IS something other than the material, I need evidence of it. And that evidence not apparent. When I look at what's in my world, I see material things. I don't see immaterial things. Sure, people SAY those things exist, but I don't see them. People make many arguments for them, but as I pointed out, those arguments typically include the unstated presumption of their existence.
My fish analogy answers that, if you were a fish and you were skeptical of the stuff humans talk about called "water," you would say "I don't see any water, I see all these physical things around me but I see no water,"
The very process through which you observe the world is immaterial. It is the mind that pulls sense data together and forges a coherent view of the world,you assume it;s just a straight line from your eye to your brain but it's not,
You can't tell me that believing in the existence of material things is circular.
I did not say that,I said your reasoning process in making arguments about it is circular,
It's what we see all the time. You can't tell me that the existence of immaterial tings is evident.Joe:
It's not because that's the dividing line between domains. But if think not seeing it means it's not real then you lost half of science,
We don't see them. Ever. Do I have reason to believe that the material is all that exists? Yes. It's based on the evidence. Do I presume that there could be no immaterial things? No. That's just what the evidence tells me. I do not begin my arguments by making that unstated presumption.Joe:
That is just reductionist nonsense. as i said your apprehension of the world is viewing the world through the immaterial part of your mind. the sub atomic particles is immaterial to us we cant see it we have no direct proof it's there,there is no real way to prove that the so called physical isn't just analogs to the immaterial in the way matter is related to energy, I;ts entirely possible that all physical existence is just a thought in a mind.
Saturday night 6/9/18
you seem to think that it must be empirically verifiable in exactly the same way that material things are verifiable (at least on principle). That is your unstated presumption.
- I disagree. But I do presume that evidence must be objectively knowable. If something is subjective, it isn't knowable to anybody but yourself, and therefore, it isn't evidence to anybody but yourself. It is therefore unreliable. There can (in principle) be evidence of non-material things. That's the basis of Joe's book (Joe calls it the 'trace', but that is indistinguishable from what the rest of us call 'evidence'). So, for example, if you showed me an observable effect of some immaterial entity, I would take that as evidence that such a thing exists.Joe:
You Seem to be contradicting yourself in a basic way here. You just said "if you showed me an observable effect of some immaterial entity, I would take that as evidence that such a thing exists." I have shown that because argumemt from universal experience shows that. You will never accept it. It fits exactly what you just said you will fight tooth and nail and rationalize until you bleed you will never accept that it could validate religious belief, My guess is you will back peddle and deny that you just said there are circumstances under which it could be proven.
You say "it isn't knowable to anybody but yourself" so what? If I know it it's something I know why should I allow someone else to dictate their ignorance to me as fact?
You're rigging the game from the outset by assuming that the only type of legitimate evidence is the kind that verifies material things and only material things.
- No, I'm not rigging the game. Please note that I don't insist on seeing the thing itself. I just need to see evidence that it exists.
The old atheist ploy, You deny that you insist upon absolute proof but we supply gobs of evidence.I have 52 arguments. Plantiga has 120, I;'ve seen more.o Every single time you keep boosting the ante until you really are demanding absolute proof;you say you aren't and it's fine in theory but you really are. The good atheist solider boy will never ever never admit that any evidence might just possibly maybe might prove it. Never.
200 studies in peer reviewed journals making three different arguments, you have never read a single study you know almost nothing abouit the facts your assertions of what they say are just third hand guesses.
Show me something that nature can't do. Show me a fruit tree that produces fruits with the Lord's prayer written on the inside of the unopened peels. Show me someone who can reliably predict future events. It doesn't matter what it is - I just need to see evidence. You are rigging the game by insisting that something exists, but I can never see the evidence of it.Joe:
(1) You are dogmatically trying to raise the bar to a level you know wont be met.
(2) There is no theoretical reason why that's a valid requirement in terms of disproof of Christian belief. It's based upon bucking the Bible but I don't have to just defend Bible thumping, There are other views of Christianity and non Christian views of God. Any of them being true means atheism is not true.
(3) your contradiction--this is why i say bucking the Bible, You say: "Show me a fruit tree that produces fruits with the Lord's prayer written on the inside of the unopened peels. Show me someone who can reliably predict future events. It doesn't matter what it is - I just need to see evidence." That is based upon countering the Bile rather than just reuting any kind of evidence, But you sweep all possible evidence under that rug, unless the evidence is that dramatic it's not evidence. That is totally different from just saying as you do "I just need to see evidence." No! You just got throw demanding evidence at a ridiculous level that you know wont happen; that is a contradiction.
On the overall issue proof of immaterial
You are talking like there is just a straight 1x1 proposition of seeing an object, we see it so it's real, You are glossing over the epistemological problems inherent in being human. This is not a matter of verifying some object. It;s about the nature of reality, There is no reason to expect empirical proof of any epistemic fundamental at the level of being itself. God is not just an object in nature but he basis of reality,.
There are three aspects of reality that might lead us to believe:
(3) Laws of phsyics
These are realities that cannot rationally be denied and yet have no physical basis in the world as we know it, It will be tempting for the physicalist to say they are in the brain they result of brain chemistry, No they are not, in fact we can only access them through mind, True that we need the physical apparatus to think about them but that does not reduce them to brain function. They are clearly just concepts that are referenced through brain function, they don't reside in any physical space,
The concept of physical law i s proving problematic is not as simple as merely reducing to description of the universes behavior. If physical law exists as such then there is a non physical reality that bears impact upon physical reality. If it is just a matter of describing the universe,what is being described is a law-like regularity. 
Physics at the most basic level is not able to explain the basis of reality,It may be that the physical is really just another form of the mental the way matter is just another form of energy,
 J.L.Hinman,"Argument from Universal Nature of Mystical Experience." The Religious a priori, no date given
(1) Religious experience is an individual personal experience
(2) Religious symbols are cultural
(3) scientific knowledge is far from proving a gene for religion
(4) therefore, we should not expect to find that mystical experience is universal
(5) we do find that mystical experiences are universal in the nature of what is experienced.
(6) Therefore, we are rationally warranted in thinking that there is an external stimulus being experienced.
(7)Since universal mystical experience leads people to faith, the content of it is about God, and is life transforming we are warranted in the assumption that this external stimulus experienced is God
 J.L.Hinman "Laws of Physics beyond descriptive/prescriptive dichotomy," Metacrock;s blog (Aug 21, 2017)
 J.L.Hinman. "can science really prove the basis of modern physics?" Metacrocl's b.og, (April 30, 2017)