What kind of evidence would prove god ?

Sertus

Happy Holidays ! :pac:

I came across this on "The Atheist Experience" show, and it got me thinking :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5L1X3g4wRQ


So, just wondering what the specialists here think . . . .

For the sake of argument, lets say the supposed entity 'God' is something along the lines of the dictionary definition of monotheism and the beliefs of Christianity / Islam / Judaism

So lets say the 'God' finally decided to appear to a group of us here, claimed he was 'God' and to prove to us he was 'God', he raised a few people from the dead, created a special planet for us, juggled some stars, and some other fantastic god like 'miracles'.

How would it actually prove he was the 'God' and not some alien with what seemed to be 'God' like abilities ?

I'd be like . . . "That's very impressive dude, but apart from what you claim, how do I really know you are actually 'God' "

Is there any kind of evidence or argument that could prove a being was 'God' ?

Ash.J.Williams

if **** that happened in the bible still happened..eg getting a bollocking off god every time you did something wrong...or god asking you to do ****..

doctoremma

Sertus wrote: »

How would it actually prove he was the 'God' and not some alien with what seemed to be 'God' like abilities ?

Would it matter? If some entity moves planets, raises the dead and predicts the future, heck, I'll call them 'god'.

Penn

What evidence would prove God?

God.

If God himself appeared in front of a large number of random people (myself included) and did something which would be otherwise impossible to do, that would pretty much prove God for me. In fact, I'm unsure as to why he hasn't done it yet if he does exist. Everyone would follow one religion, world would be more peaceful, everyone would have a greater chance of going to Heaven... God's a bit of a dick for not having done it yet.

FISMA

Penn wrote: »

If God himself appeared in front of a large number of random people (myself included) and did something which would be otherwise impossible to do, that would pretty much prove God for me.

I doubt that. Most claims by the faithful of events that are unexplained in the natural world are usually dismissed as mass hallucination or the like.

Penn wrote: »

In fact, I'm unsure as to why he hasn't done it yet if he does exist.

The faithful would beg to differ.

Penn wrote: »

Everyone would follow one religion, [...] everyone would have a greater chance of going to Heaven.

Perhaps, for a while. Then a few generations later people would question their forefathers.

Suppose there is a God and that God is absolute. Living in a relative world, would our tools of analysis be appropriate or even useful?

How does the subset (man) affirm the set, or, perhaps, super-set?

How can something like Physics, the study of the natural world, analyze God, if God is super-natural? It may offer the most accurate descriptions man has ever realized for physical systems in the natural world, but is it an appropriate approach for analysis of the super-natural?

Penn wrote: »

world would be more peaceful

Doubtful. Is man estranged in essence?

It's hard to know, given the whole "any sufficiently advanced technology..." etc.
You'd nearly have to wait til after death and then see

syklops

Asking to borrow my Starship would do it for me.

mark renton

Yea and even if he did raise the dead and juggle the stars, how do we know hes not just learned that from Darren Brown?

Sarky

Archaeological and historical evidence that the bible is literal ?

syklops wrote: »

Asking to borrow my Starship would do it for me.

What does God want with a starship?

Penn

FISMA wrote: »

I doubt that. Most claims by the faithful of events that are unexplained in the natural world are usually dismissed as mass hallucination or the like.



The faithful would beg to differ.



Perhaps, for a while. Then a few generations later people would question their forefathers.

Suppose there is a God and that God is absolute. Living in a relative world, would our tools of analysis be appropriate or even useful?

How does the subset (man) affirm the set, or, perhaps, super-set?

How can something like Physics, the study of the natural world, analyze God, if God is super-natural? It may offer the most accurate descriptions man has ever realized for physical systems in the natural world, but is it an appropriate approach for analysis of the super-natural?


Doubtful. Is man estranged in essence?

To answer your points:

- I said "many random people" to ensure its not just the faithful who see him. Random people throughout the world of all faiths and no faith all seeing the same thing at the same time would be much harder to dismiss, and for me to believe it personally, I'd have to see it to in order to verify for myself what they are claiming.

- If I remember correctly, there's no story in the Bible or anything since where God has apparently appeared to so many people throughout the world at the same time. In fact now that I'm thinking about it, has God himself ever appeared to more than two people at one time?

- I agree that later generations would start to doubt our claims. That's when God would need to do it again. No reason why he couldn't.

- I was going to mention about how he could do something unnatural which we could fully analyse as proof, but then I too thought we probably wouldn't have the knowledge or tools to analyse something which by its very nature would be unnatural. Seeing it for myself, even without analysing it, would just be one part of being enough proof for me.

- The world wouldn't be peaceful, it would just be more peaceful than it currently is, as most religious conflicts would suddenly be resolved. There'd still then be "Well God said we should do this" "No, God said that but he meant we should do this instead" etc with different factions of the same religion, but most people would be singing from the same hymn sheet, albeit in different keys.

I suppose (having read back over what I wrote) I'm probably talking more about what evidence would I personally need to prove God exists, rather than what evidence would the world need for everyone to believe god exists. So my answer isn't great.

Lelantos

Since its almost his birthday, changing the seas into wine so we can all celebrate in style!

Kivaro

Sarky wrote: »

What does God want with a starship?

The hot chicks?

pauldla

Hasn't the OP just described a Star Trek TNG plot...?

New_Flash

I'm not sure what would convince me. If god started talking to everybody around the world at the same time I'd be more likely to think "vogons" then "god".

Now where'd I leave that towel?

mark renton

If Gwyneth Paltrow knocks on my door on christmas mornin then I'm a believer..

Galvasean

pauldla wrote: »

Hasn't the OP just described a Star Trek TNG plot...?

There was an episode in the old series where they encountered an advancd race of aliens posing as the Gods of Olympus.

Macailz

Someone mentioned in an earlier post that if he spoke to the whole world at the same time then it would convince them, i think I'd agree.

If God really did exist and want us all to worship him, then should he not address us all? if presidents can address whole nations then surely God can address the whole world.

God by this stage should realise, that we're not perfect and if he did appear to a couple of people then he should expect them to be locked up in a mental asylum. I know I'd be first on the phone to my local mental hospital if someone in my family claimed that God appeared to them and only them.

Zillah

There is no way we could ever be sure God wasn't an alien. Then again, we can never be sure we're not brains in jars. I'd lean towards belief if God spelled out YAHWEH with blackholes in intergalactic space. Encoding the entirety of The Bible into the cosmic background radiation would probably do it, too. Changing some universal constants would do it, I'd imagine. Maybe change one back and forth in morse code to signal CHRIST IS LORD.

There's a million ways he could do it. He won't though, because he isn't real. If God existed then there wouldn't be any issue around his existence. People don't sit around questioning if the Taoiseach is real. It's a given. Can you imagine the absurdity of people insisting that it is essential that we have FAITH in Enda Kenny, even if no one could see or interact with him? We've completely lost sight of the forest for the trees around the topic of God's baffling absence.

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

Sertus wrote: »

Is there any kind of evidence or argument that could prove a being was 'God' ?

Any means which leads to your being satisfied God exists is as good as any other means. Consider:

As soon as God demonstrates his existence to you (by whichever means satisfies you: empiricism, reasoning, revelation), you'll realise that those means were designed by God.

You'll also realise that because they were designed by God, the confidience-giving quotient attached to each means is for God to determine - not us.

And so: personal revelation might well be a more effective means for God convincing you of his existence than the one's beloved by atheists.

Lelantos

antiskeptic wrote: »

Any means which leads to your being satisfied God exists is as good as any other means. Consider:

As soon as God demonstrates his existence to you (by whichever means satisfies you: empiricism, reasoning, revelation), you'll realise that those means were designed by God.

You'll also realise that because they were designed by God, the confidience-giving quotient attached to each means is for God to determine - not us.

And so: personal revelation might well be a more effective means for God convincing you of his existence than the one's beloved by atheists.

I.E. the hearing voices argument

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

Lelantos wrote: »

I.E. the hearing voices argument

"The hearing voices is as good as any other method" argument. You got a counter?

Zillah

antiskeptic wrote: »

Any means which leads to your being satisfied God exists is as good as any other means. Consider:

As soon as God demonstrates his existence to you (by whichever means satisfies you: empiricism, reasoning, revelation), you'll realise that those means were designed by God.

You'll also realise that because they were designed by God, the confidience-giving quotient attached to each means is for God to determine - not us.

And so: personal revelation might well be a more effective means for God convincing you of his existence than the one's beloved by atheists.

What?

Lelantos

antiskeptic wrote: »

"The hearing voices is as good as any other method" argument. You got a counter?

Not believing in mythical beings & the faux arguments of religious zealots

doomed

Bad things would stop happening.

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

antiskeptic wrote:

You got a counter?

Lelantos wrote: »

Not believing in mythical beings & the faux arguments of religious zealots

I thought not. NEXT!!

Lelantos

antiskeptic wrote: »

I thought not. NEXT!!

Or the contemptuous ramblings of the pious

Zillah

antiskeptic wrote: »

I thought not. NEXT!!

What you posted made no sense. It is like the ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic. There isn't really a response beyond "Whoah, that's some crazy nonsense".

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

Zillah wrote: »

What you posted made no sense...

..to you.

NEXT!!

krudler

Zillah wrote: »

There is no way we could ever be sure God wasn't an alien. Then again, we can never be sure we're not brains in jars. I'd lean towards belief if God spelled out YAHWEH with blackholes in intergalactic space. Encoding the entirety of The Bible into the cosmic background radiation would probably do it, too. Changing some universal constants would do it, I'd imagine. Maybe change one back and forth in morse code to signal CHRIST IS LORD.

There's a million ways he could do it. He won't though, because he isn't real. If God existed then there wouldn't be any issue around his existence. People don't sit around questioning if the Taoiseach is real. It's a given. Can you imagine the absurdity of people insisting that it is essential that we have FAITH in Enda Kenny, even if no one could see or interact with him? We've completely lost sight of the forest for the trees around the topic of God's baffling absence.

Well he did appear a few times to some people in the bronze age and earlier leaving no evidence beyond a flimsy tome of contradictions, isn't that proof enough! Its funny how someone who claims a burning bush gave them some orders via god is reliable, yet if someone said the same these days they'd be committed.

Galvasean

antiskeptic wrote: »

..to you.

NEXT!!

Sure, I'll bite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQWwO0vGu44

oldrnwisr

antiskeptic wrote: »

"The hearing voices is as good as any other method" argument. You got a counter?

Yes, actually.

The "hearing voices" argument or as it is more commonly known, the argument from religious experience is a poor argument in favour of a deity for a number of reasons.

Firstly, on a personal level, if you are the only one to have experienced this phenomenon then how do you separate a genuine experience (assuming such a thing exists) from a hallucination, mini-stroke, dream, mental disorder etc. etc. As Dickens said:

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

A rational person would seek to eliminate false experiences which this method of evidence doesn't provide. How can you be sure that your personal revelation is genuine?


Secondly, assuming that from step 1 you have convinced yourself of the authenticity of the experience then how do you propose to convince other people without proof that they too can access. Personal experience is just that personal, it lacks objectivity. Even if you are convinced that your experience is genuine, without the ability to convince anyone else it would be like knowing the world's biggest secret, what value is there in that?


Thirdly, assuming for a moment that this experience is a genuine (i.e. not imagined or hallucinated), and a direct communication from your deity, how do you verify the identity of the entity making this revelation. For example, within your mythology there are two key and opposing players, God and Satan. Supposing you received what you are convinced to be a message from God, how can you verify that this message actually came from God and not Satan. And for that matter, how do you know that it's even your god, it could even be Nyarlathotep for all you know.


Finally, if personal experience is sufficient to convince you of the existence of your god then it must also be sufficient to convince an adherent of another religion of their god's existence. How then would a third-party resolve the contradictory stories and decide which if either of the two deities actually existed?


Personal experience is a weak argument because being personally convinced of a God is useless. It's particularly useless if you're a Christian because the Bible, particularly the New Testament, promotes evangelism and proselytism.

"To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some."

1 Corinthians 9:22

If you can't convince people because of the subjective nature of your evidence then how do you hope to spread your "good news".

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Yes, actually.

The "hearing voices" argument or as it is more commonly known, the argument from religious experience is a poor argument in favour of a deity for a number of reasons.

Firstly, on a personal level, if you are the only one to have experienced this phenomenon then how do you separate a genuine experience (assuming such a thing exists) from a hallucination, mini-stroke, dream, mental disorder etc. etc. As Dickens said:

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

A rational person would seek to eliminate false experiences which this method of evidence doesn't provide. How can you be sure that your personal revelation is genuine?


Secondly, assuming that from step 1 you have convinced yourself of the authenticity of the experience then how do you propose to convince other people without proof that they too can access. Personal experience is just that personal, it lacks objectivity. Even if you are convinced that your experience is genuine, without the ability to convince anyone else it would be like knowing the world's biggest secret, what value is there in that?


Thirdly, assuming for a moment that this experience is a genuine (i.e. not imagined or hallucinated), and a direct communication from your deity, how do you verify the identity of the entity making this revelation. For example, within your mythology there are two key and opposing players, God and Satan. Supposing you received what you are convinced to be a message from God, how can you verify that this message actually came from God and not Satan. And for that matter, how do you know that it's even your god, it could even be Nyarlathotep for all you know.


Finally, if personal experience is sufficient to convince you of the existence of your god then it must also be sufficient to convince an adherent of another religion of their god's existence. How then would a third-party resolve the contradictory stories and decide which if either of the two deities actually existed?


Personal experience is a weak argument because being personally convinced of a God is useless. It's particularly useless if you're a Christian because the Bible, particularly the New Testament, promotes evangelism and proselytism.

"To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some."

1 Corinthians 9:22

If you can't convince people because of the subjective nature of your evidence then how do you hope to spread your "good news".

Sorry to cut you short but you need to peddle back a little and see what the argument actually is.

oldrnwisr

antiskeptic wrote: »

Sorry to cut you short but you need to peddle back a little and see what the argument actually is.

You mean this:

antiskeptic wrote: »

And so: personal revelation might well be a more effective means for God convincing you of his existence than the one's beloved by atheists.

Is this not your argument?

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

oldrnwisr wrote: »

You mean this: Is this not your argument?

That's not my argument. It's a sentence from my argument, the conclusion of the argument in fact.

oldrnwisr

antiskeptic wrote: »

That's not my argument. It's a sentence from my argument, the conclusion in fact.

And your argument is?

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

oldrnwisr wrote: »

And your argument is?

...the bit above the conclusion drawn from the argument.

oldrnwisr

antiskeptic wrote: »

...the bit above the conclusion drawn from the argument.

OK then let's go back to that.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Any means which leads to your being satisfied God exists is as good as any other means.

First off, it should be readily apparent that this is false. As soon as you have more than one method of determining the existence of God, then it is possible for one method to be better than another. Since your preferred method "personal revelation" lacks accessibility (i.e. it provides a type of evidence which you cannot objectively demonstrate) it is weaker than other methods which provide solid evidence.

Now,as for your main point:

antiskeptic wrote: »

As soon as God demonstrates his existence to you (by whichever means satisfies you: empiricism, reasoning, revelation), you'll realise that those means were designed by God.

You'll also realise that because they were designed by God, the confidience-giving quotient attached to each means is for God to determine - not us.

The problem here is that this line of reasoning is entirely redundant. It is predicated, firstly, on the external undeclared assumption that your god is both omnipotent and omniscient in that it is capable of determining the optimum channel of revelation (confidence-giving quotient in your words) and altering you, your environment, the revelatory method or all of the above. This in itself presents a problem because it strays into the omni paradox. Secondly, it makes the idea of divine intervention such as that featured in your mythology unnecessary to the point of ridicule. If this being is capable of controlling you and your environment to the degree that it can decide in advance a method of revelation and alter said method to the degree that it will be convincing then there is no moment of divine intervention. It just becomes one big Goldberg device where your always going to become a believer.

The second problem is that you've entirely jumped the gun and avoided the difficult questions in the first place. You start by saying "as soon as God demonstrates his existence to you" without dealing with the problem of how a being is supposed to do that in the first place. So if you start from a point from where you're not already convinced, how do you get to convinced? That is where reason and evidence and my last post comes in. Personal experience doesn't explain anything.

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

oldrnwisr wrote: »

OK then let's go back to that.

Later. I'm going out for a piece of my Christmas present, apparently...

Genghiz Cohen

For me, there is none.
It is far more likely that I am hallucinating or dreaming or what have you, than a God exists.

FISMA

Penn wrote: »

- I said "many random people" to ensure its not just the faithful who see him. Random people throughout the world of all faiths and no faith all seeing the same thing at the same time would be much harder to dismiss, and for me to believe it personally, I'd have to see it to in order to verify for myself what they are claiming.

Not that I agree or disagree with you Penn, however, let me play the contrarian role.

Suppose such a thing happened to a group as you suggest and I, being a scientist asked you to prove, scientifically, that your memory was working properly.

What would you say? How could you, or anyone, demonstrate that your memory was working properly, scientifically speaking?

Sertus

Archaeological and historical evidence that the bible is literal ?

Galvasean wrote: »

There was an episode in the old series where they encountered an advancd race of aliens posing as the Gods of Olympus.

'God' would have to do better than that. I love star trek, but they had fairly cheap special effects. Even if he created new stars and spelled my name in the sky with them to supply me and thousands of others with evidence, i'd still be like "cool stunt bro, but how do I know you're actually 'God' "

Zillah

Antiskeptic is drunk, that's my guess.

Kivaro

If god brought Christopher Hitchens back to life, then I'd believe in him.

MagicMarker

Zillah wrote: »

Antiskeptic is drunk, that's my guess.

All the time?

Zombrex

Zillah wrote: »

Antiskeptic is drunk, that's my guess.

No, he just has a hard time with the notion that he believes (or wants to believe) in God and rationalising that with notions of what is a "good reason" to believe something is true rather than false.

So we get this sort of nonsense, God decides what is the standard for you to believe he exists, thus if you believe he exists you can't say that is not a good reason because God decided it was good enough because you believe in him, don't you. If he exists.

Like Phil most of the arguments start along the lines of "For the sake of argument assume God exists, now if he exists then ..." with the hope one imagines that we never get back to demonstrating the justification for the first bit.

Sarky

Archaeological and historical evidence that the bible is literal ?

It always amounts to him asking people to lower their standards. It's a terrible cop-out.

Zombrex

antiskeptic wrote: »

Any means which leads to your being satisfied God exists is as good as any other means. Consider:

As soon as God demonstrates his existence to you (by whichever means satisfies you: empiricism, reasoning, revelation), you'll realise that those means were designed by God.

You'll also realise that because they were designed by God, the confidience-giving quotient attached to each means is for God to determine - not us.

And so: personal revelation might well be a more effective means for God convincing you of his existence than the one's beloved by atheists.

Perhaps on purpose, perhaps by mistake, you failed to actually answer the question. You simply restarted it, substituting "prove god" with "satisfied God exists".

Zombrex

Sarky wrote: »

It always amounts to him asking people to lower their standards. It's a terrible cop-out.

Pretty much, based on an argument that only works if we assume God already exists.

In fact a while back in a discussion it actually became apparent that this is an argument against God not for him so it doesn't even work then. Since God has designed us (if he exists) to be very poor at actually accurately assessing the world in the manner that most religious people use to determine for themselves that God exists (such as personal assessment of experiences, memory and odds) it seems some what illogical that God would only reveal himself to us this way if he was going to.

It's like discovering humans are very bad at accurately assessing shapes in very low light, so God decides to only ever appear to us in very low light, the very thing he designed us to be poor at perceiving accurately.

Seems unlikely (if we needed another reason why God is unlikely)

Galvasean

Seeing antiskeptic trying to argue with Oldrnwisr is like watching a cripple trying to fight a kick boxer. Only gona be one winner.

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

Zombrex wrote: »

Perhaps on purpose, perhaps by mistake, you failed to actually answer the question. You simply restarted it, substituting "prove god" with "satisfied God exists".

It's an argument poised for those who'd suppose themselves convinced by God juggling planets and the like. We can now assume God exists for the purpose of comparing their preferred means of conviction with means which they would tend to ridicule.


Inconvenient though that might be for one who goes off half baked.

antiskeptic

None of the above, and even if its proved he exists, I'll still be rejecting him

oldrnwisr wrote: »

First off, it should be readily apparent that this is false. As soon as you have more than one method of determining the existence of God, then it is possible for one method to be better than another.

That's been granted in my conclusion. It could be that revelation provides more conviction to a person. It would only take God to assign a greater conviction quotient to that means of demonstrating his existence.

For the sake of showing you understand what the argument is saying, you should restate the bolded text as "as soon as you have more than one method supplied by God aimed at convicting you of his existence then..." It shows on whose foot the shoe is placed when it comes to deciding the level of conviction to be assigned to each method. God's, in other words.

Since your preferred method "personal revelation" lacks accessibility (i.e. it provides a type of evidence which you cannot objectively demonstrate) it is weaker than other methods which provide solid evidence.

That doesn't deal with the argument. The argument puts the ball in deciding what the most convicting method is to be in God's court. Not yours.

The problem here is that this line of reasoning is entirely redundant. It is predicated, firstly, on the external undeclared assumption that your god is both omnipotent and omniscient in that it is capable of determining the optimum channel of revelation (confidence-giving quotient in your words) and altering you, your environment, the revelatory method or all of the above.

The usual God under discussion here is God of the bible - I didn't think it worth re-mentioning that.

If you don't reckon he can demonstrate his existence by any means then this argument isn't addressed at you

This in itself presents a problem because it strays into the omni paradox.

Does the 'omni-problem' have anything to say in this argument?

Secondly, it makes the idea of divine intervention such as that featured in your mythology unnecessary to the point of ridicule. If this being is capable of controlling you and your environment to the degree that it can decide in advance a method of revelation and alter said method to the degree that it will be convincing then there is no moment of divine intervention. It just becomes one big Goldberg device where your always going to become a believer.

Huh?

The second problem is that you've entirely jumped the gun and avoided the difficult questions in the first place. You start by saying "as soon as God demonstrates his existence to you" without dealing with the problem of how a being is supposed to do that in the first place.

The argument is addressed at those who would suppose God to exist on account of his juggling planets before their eyes and such like. To those who shout down all and sundry with "unless there is empirical evidence", in other words. The kind of people who populate this forum in fact.


If you reckon God unable to demonstrate his existence by any means (you could take refuge by placing your brain in a jar for instance) then the argument isn't aimed at you.