What evidence would convince you that god exists?
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paximperium
Penultimate Amazing
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God popping into existence, showing off some super magic powers and doing it consistently with multiple witnesses would be a start. There is much more testing after.
CriticalSock
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an inerrant holy book describing the activities of an omnipotent being and not one that was clearly the product of tribal wish-fulfilment.
First, one needs to define what a god would be.
Second, a natural explanation is _always_ more probable than a supernatural one. So, if I see something like a miracle, a natural answer that I do not know is more plasusible than a supernatural one. (Supernatural = euphemism for ignorance).
Third, a miracle could be produced by Satan. Or by Thor. Or by prankster extraterrestials with advanced technology. (Imagine that extraterrestials learn about our culture, and decide to fool us. They write on the moon in BIG letters, such as that are visible on planet earth - "Pray to Jesus!". After almost all earth is converted except for a few people that look for a more reasonable explanation, they emerge and say "Hey, planet Earth! Smile to the secret camera! ". ) So I can't think of any evidence that would convince me of a specific god.
And last, I can't think of any way that god could prove to us he is omnipotent. He can do a lots of things, but how can he prove he can do _everything_?
For all these reasons, I find very hard to think of even theoretical evidence that could convince me god exists.
If it would happen, wouldn't other hypotheses be far more probable than a real "god" actually doing it?
For example, if there is a man who can _really_ turn water into wine, and he says he is god - it is more reasonable that he has paranormal powers, but isn't a god, than he really is "god".
Incontrovertible evidence of miracles on demand would be a good start.
N.b. that means not "oh, we have stories from thousands of years ago that someone could convert water into wine." That also means not data-mined "hispanic female patients between 45-54 years old treated by methods other than surgery at hospitals on the west side of the city in months without an 'R' in the name recover 2% better when prayed for than not."
I'm talking about good, old-fashioned "take up your bed and walk" healing. "Prove to me that you're no fool; walk across my swimming pool." Basically, the kind of stuff that Benny Hinn has been selling for years but never actually delivering.
Depends on what you consider to be "probable," I guess. I personally don't find advanced sooper sekret alien technology to be that much more probable than magic or miracles.
Advanced technology is a rational explanation. It assumes that there is a causal chain. Magic doesn't involve a causal chain.
Imagine that we are two people living in a primitive culture. One day we see a white person coming to us, with the ability to kill people from a far, using something that looks like a stick (gun). According to your position above, you would say that he is a god. I would say that the idea that he has advanced super secret technology, from a technologically advanced culture is more probable.
CriticalSock
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No. Because an omnipotent god would know what needed to be put in his book to convince people.
And turning water into wine is exactly the example of human level wish fulfilment that I'm talking about!
Off the cuff, this is the kind of thing I would expect to see in the word of god:
"and god put reason into the minds of the Canaanites and they came unto Israel and said 'let us set up trade agreements and stop all this fighting business. you have convinced us that yours is the true god so let's be friends.' and no women or children or men were harmed in the whole of the land of Canaan because they had become true believers."
Shalamar
Dark Lord of the JREF
Despite the fact that I may be agnostic (Or leaning in that direction), I know what would easily convince me that there is NO god: Man finally leaves the planet. We explore the solar system, the galaxy, the universe and we find.. nothing. No life anywhere, at all. Nothing intelligent. We are truly alone. An accident of fate.
As for proof of Gods existence.. how about spontaneous regeneration of an amputees limbs.
Sure it does. The spell caused the event. That's a causal chain.
Ah, yes. Argument by amazingly bad analogy. The problem is that we're NOT living in a primitive culture and we're NOT encountering a white person for the first time. In fact, to the best of our actual knowledge, there are no advanced alien civilizations out there.
But even taking your amazingly bad analogy at face value, it can be easily demonstrated that the English explorer is not a God. Take his rifle away, for example, and he can no longer kill at a distance. He also can't restore what he killed. An omnipotent God has no such limitations.
There's your problem right there. How can one define something omnipotent, and how can one test it?
Gee, so if every amputees would pray for regenerations of their limbs, and their prayers would be fulfilled, your hypothesis would be that there really is a god answering them?
I would start looking for neurological explanations.
Besides, you cannot prove to exist what you cannot define...
Something is omnipotent if and only if it can do anything.
Testing it is simplicity itself. Ask it to do something. If it can't, it's not omnipotent.
Actually, if every amputee who prayed for regeneration got it and every amputee who didn't, didn't,... yes, "God" is quite a reasonable hypothesis.
Only this man can operate his rifle (the others don't know how to use it).
He wouldn't be omnipotent, but he would still have supernatural powers. Sai Baba for example says to be god, but he doesn't claim to be omnipotent.
paximperium
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I define god as a purple colored sweet fruit from vines that can change into wine.
paximperium
Penultimate Amazing
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Are we talking about god or God?