Proof/falsification of god.

[transferosome]

I would assume that the instance of evidence in this case would completely re-write or utterly invalidate what we currently understand of basic physics. Whatever it is occurring would be so fanstatical that everyone would be scratching their heads and asking for grants to study the effects.

Advanced alien technology, even if not understandable, would (I assume) still correlate with the very basics of science even us primitive humans currently know.

Assume away, but there's a touch of hubris is assuming that we'd understand even the basic principles of ALL science.... Or an alien equivalent thereof. I mean, we haven't even discovered slood yet.

Much of what we do know would appear as 'magic' to people of even a couple of hunderd years ago. We still have real problems with a fundamental lack of understanding about our universe... We've come a long way, but what exactly ARE dark matter and dark energy? Maybe they hold a key to a whole new branch of science, or infinite energy, or teleportation, or wormholes, or something we can't even imkagine right now. Who knows? I mean, who could possibly have guessed quantum mechanics?

What if we were visited by aliens who evolved in space itself? Such a lifeform wouldn't have technology which is ultimately based on fire, as ours is... Coming from a different direction, it would most likely be completely alien in every way.

I like your 'rewriting physics' idea... It might be tricky to set that up without changing the way things work enough to make us pop out of existence though.

 

[transferosome]

For the record, I consider myself a Deist.

To be honest, I can't think of anything that would falsify my belief. Perhaps if science could explain everything. Hmmm, no, not even then; just because science gave a sufficient answer to everything still doen't mean that's what's really going on.

I will have to think about this some more.
Excellent question!

Thanks!

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as a Deist, I understand that you don't believe in a personal god? More one who set things up then stood back? A bit like the 'The universe is an alien kid's science project' hypothesis.

That's kinda unfalsifyable, almost by definition.

If I am right, a personal god would require a severe shift in belief. If so, for the purposes of this argument, I consider you to be on 'our' side - atheists, agnostics and deists, as opposed to theists and fundamentalists.

What would convince you of the existence of a particular personal god - say an Abrahamic one? Or even some Norse gods?

If you CAN think up a falsifyability for a deist god, I'd LOVE to hear it! I'd love to hear your belief structure explained as well, as I'm sure 'deist' can have as many subtleties as 'atheist'...

 

[H3LL]

'What would you accept as proof of the existence of God'?

Being topical.

The resurrection of all victims of the Virginia Massacre and making Cho Seung-hui incredibly rich and sane would certainly do it for me.

Well documented from many independent sources. All the victims alive and kicking is a real winner.

.

 

[transferosome]

Interesting... I'm not the only one to think this.





Come on, theists! There must be some of you on this board. This guy's calling you all closed-minded, prove him wrong!

 

[ReligionStudent]

Okay, I'll give a hint. This is the biggest hint I have ever given.

Imagine looking up at the Moon one night and seeing a picture of the first person you ever had a crush on instead of the normal face of the Moon. Then the next night it's the first person you ever kissed. Then the next night it's the person you're most in love with right now. And so on; pictures of people you have had close relationships with throughout your life.

They are people spread out through your entire life, so even though others may know one or two or even three of the people, the entire sequence only applies to you. It's not something that could happen by chance. And it's not something someone who wasn't you, or God, could set up. And since you didn't set it up, God must have. Therefore God exists.

My event is not that. But it's like that.

It's somthing that could happen if you were mentally unglued, or had accidently ingested hallusinagenic drugs.

 

[Beleth]

Just to be clear, other people would see the faces, just not understand the sequence? It would have to be, to eliminate hallucination, I think...

Yes, although I don't suppose any proof can totally eliminate the possibility of hallucination. I could just be hallucinating the other people saying they can see the faces too.

Also important to consider is that this would be a very personal proof. Personal God, personal proof. It would not necessarily convince anyone else.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as a Deist, I understand that you don't believe in a personal god? More one who set things up then stood back? A bit like the 'The universe is an alien kid's science project' hypothesis.

There are subtleties to my belief that aren't in that analogy, but yeah, that's a good first draft.

If I am right, a personal god would require a severe shift in belief. If so, for the purposes of this argument, I consider you to be on 'our' side - atheists, agnostics and deists, as opposed to theists and fundamentalists.

Yes.

What would convince you of the existence of a particular personal god - say an Abrahamic one? Or even some Norse gods?

We've been talking about this See posts 2 and 34 in this thread.

If you CAN think up a falsifyability for a deist god, I'd LOVE to hear it! I'd love to hear your belief structure explained as well, as I'm sure 'deist' can have as many subtleties as 'atheist'...

Falsifiability, I think, would come down to proving whether a universe is creatable or not. The only way to prove that a universe is creatable is by creating one. And that proof is not going to come in my lifetime.

My favorite analogy of God is that of a potter, and the universe is a pot He's moderately happy with. He might have it on His mantle, along with several other pots. He might have given it or sold it to someone else. But He's not part of it, and the only way He could fix any of its flaws is by destroying it and starting over.

But this is starting to drift away from the topic!

 

[roger]

What would convince me?

Exactly the same evidence that convinces me that person X that I know owns the Italian restaurant next door. In other words not much, but a heck of a lot.

What on earth do I mean? Well, I knew the old owner of the restaurant, and talked to him about selling it. Then he sold it. Then Carlo showed up, saying he and his wife owned the restaurant. There's a business license tacked up on the wall, but I never leaned over to make sure Carlo's name was on it. I've never gone down to city hall to check his claim, but I could. More importantly, in the years he has been here, no one has ever been standing at the counter, yelling at him to stop pretending the business is his. No cops have ever shown up to drag him to prison. So, while I don't have the paperwork in hand showing Carlo to be the business owner, I am satisfied he is the owner.

What does this have to do with a God claim? Well, any individual act can be attributed to other things. Raise someone from the dead? Part the red sea? We can think of, or at least imagine technology or trickery to accomplish those things. When the presense of a God is interwoven in such a way that the individual claims are quite pedestrian, and easy to verify in the same way I could verify Carlo owns the restaurant, then I will believe. "Hey God, can you stop the rain, I just paid $200 for my shoes?" "no probemo", and the rain shuts off. "Hey God, tell me X about human evolution history", "well..." and two years later we have multiple independently confirmed digs that show that God was correct. Etc. I may still not have proof that the God created this universe, but if he regularly displays omnipotence, I'll credit that he is omnipotent.

Likewise, if I die, and spend a few decades in some kind of heaven or alternate reality, I'll believe, but I'm sure at the beginning I'll strongly suspect it is just a hallucination.

 

[transferosome]

We've been talking about this See posts 2 and 34 in this thread.

So we have! Doh.

Falsifiability, I think, would come down to proving whether a universe is creatable or not. The only way to prove that a universe is creatable is by creating one. And that proof is not going to come in my lifetime.

My favorite analogy of God is that of a potter, and the universe is a pot He's moderately happy with. He might have it on His mantle, along with several other pots. He might have given it or sold it to someone else. But He's not part of it, and the only way He could fix any of its flaws is by destroying it and starting over.

But this is starting to drift away from the topic!

I like the analogy. I think exploring the deist belief system is something I'd like to do, maybe in another thread...

 

[Beerina]

So, atheists (agnostics, humanists, deists, etc.) - what would you accept as evidence for the existence of a 'personal' religious god such as Allah, or Jehovah? You can go for full on 'proof positive' or evidence that would require further investigation.

A god as portrayed in most religions? I don't know. If they expanded my mind so I could understand the supposed ability of them to be all-powerful, perfectly good, and yet let children be raped and murdered screaming, then I might accept it.

However, if some guy showed me a room with all kinds of levers where I could stop time, play with people's minds and thoughts, re-design DNA, re-design even atoms and physics, create universes at will, etc., then I would reasonably conclude they were the creator of this universe (or at least were indistinguishible from something capable of it) but that would not be the kind of Holy, spiritual being that religions portray.

 

[Beerina]

How about a message in the randomness of pi?

That would mean a Universe creator actually left a message in the fabric of the Universe.

Deeper than that -- the creator of mathematics and logic would have embedded such a message -- and we'd have no way to understand how that even could be. But at the least, it would preceed the existence of something as mundane as an actual universe and a physical reality.

That was something the book Contact went into much more than the movie. IIRC, in the book (at least the ones published in the mid '80's), the small wormholes were shorter and created by the aliens. The large, inter-galactic, long-distance ones were created by a race of pre-aliens (for lack of a better term) that the movie mentions as "they were gone long before we got here", and the (current) aliens didn't know how they built them. (The movie merely touches on this as Ellie enters a bigger wormhole, "This one's much more violent.") They also didn't know who created the messages embedded in various transcendental and transfinite numbers, a message from an even deeper source than the pre-aliens.

 

[PrincessIneffabelle]

I don't think anything could make me believe in any god. I tried earnestly for almost 20 years and found not even a shred of "faith". Not only could I not find it, but no one could tell me how to find it. I sincerely asked family, friends, church-goers, and church leaders (preachers, ministers, elders, etc). They would always say things like "Read the Bible" or "You just have to believe" or, my personal favorite, "You're a sinner and you're going to hell." I tried and prayed so hard for so many years; in the end, I felt nothing but disillusioned. Even if a god someday "appeared" and/or "spoke" to me, I'd probably think that I was crazy. Unless it was Mr Skinny, of course.

Religions and the idea of gods just never made sense to me, even as a child. On the other hand, science makes quite a lot of sense to me. The more I found out about anthropology, socialogy, biology, and psychiatry, the more I realized that the answers I was looking for were not in churches or holy books.

 

[transferosome]

I don't think anything could make me believe in any god. I tried earnestly for almost 20 years and found not even a shred of "faith". Not only could I not find it, but no one could tell me how to find it. I sincerely asked family, friends, church-goers, and church leaders (preachers, ministers, elders, etc). They would always say things like "Read the Bible" or "You just have to believe" or, my personal favorite, "You're a sinner and you're going to hell." I tried and prayed so hard for so many years; in the end, I felt nothing but disillusioned. Even if a god someday "appeared" and/or "spoke" to me, I'd probably think that I was crazy. Unless it was Mr Skinny, of course.

Religions and the idea of gods just never made sense to me, even as a child. On the other hand, science makes quite a lot of sense to me. The more I found out about anthropology, socialogy, biology, and psychiatry, the more I realized that the answers I was looking for were not in churches or holy books.

That sounds sucky. Still, I'm sue all free, rational thinkers are glad to have you among their number.

Anyway, I'm not necessarily looking for something to make you *believe*... Just what, as a scientific thinker, you would consider as proof of, or evidence supporting, a personal god. Like Jehova or something.

 

[PrincessIneffabelle]

And my answer, craftily contained in my previous post, was that nothing would make me believe in any gods.

I don't think that there could be any evidence or proof, because, as a rational thinker, I could not be sure that it wasn't my brain going on the fritz.

 

[transferosome]

And my answer, craftily contained in my previous post, was that nothing would make me believe in any gods.

I don't think that there could be any evidence or proof, because, as a rational thinker, I could not be sure that it wasn't my brain going on the fritz.

Apologies. I tend to place 'Belief' and 'Evidence' in separate mental compartments. Evidence of existence does not always lead to 'belief' - nor does belief require evidence of existence.

It sounds like your atheism is a belief system itself. If I was shown enough good evidence of ANYTHING, I'd like to think that I'd give it a fair shot... If the evidence was overwhelming I'd accept it. At least until more, new, contrary evidence came through.

If I were to hold on to my atheism despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, prefering to attribute it all to my brain playing up, I wouldn't really be rational. Would I?

How about things observed by other people as well? If your brain is THAT much on the fritz that you're hallucinating the news, or your friends' actions, then the eternal mystery of the existence of god would probably be the last of your problems...

 

[Orangutan]

Well In the Bible God makes the Sun Stand still in the heavens. If he could do that for a few hours I would be convinced. Of course I wouldn't know who's God did it, there might have to be some other heavenly sign to to clarify that it isn't Vishnu having a bit of a laugh.

 

[transferosome]

Well In the Bible God makes the Sun Stand still in the heavens. If he could do that for a few hours I would be convinced. Of course I wouldn't know who's God did it, there might have to be some other heavenly sign to to clarify that it isn't Vishnu having a bit of a laugh.

Darren Brown turned day into night for one guy. Simply put him into a trance for a few hours, then woke him up.

Granted, sun stoppig would be harder to fake. If it was confirmed by astronomers (and we all had to adjust our watches and calendars to fit the new orbits) I'd be impressed for sure.

 

[PrincessIneffabelle]

Apologies. I tend to place 'Belief' and 'Evidence' in separate mental compartments. Evidence of existence does not always lead to 'belief' - nor does belief require evidence of existence.

It sounds like your atheism is a belief system itself. If I was shown enough good evidence of ANYTHING, I'd like to think that I'd give it a fair shot... If the evidence was overwhelming I'd accept it. At least until more, new, contrary evidence came through.

If I were to hold on to my atheism despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, prefering to attribute it all to my brain playing up, I wouldn't really be rational. Would I?

How about things observed by other people as well? If your brain is THAT much on the fritz that you're hallucinating the news, or your friends' actions, then the eternal mystery of the existence of god would probably be the last of your problems...

And how do I know that's not the case? For all I know, I could be a figment of someone else's dream. For all I know, I could be in a coma or a mental institution. My observable world makes sense to me now. If it suddenly started to not make sense, I would not jump to a "gods are real" conclusion.

Other people seeing something or experiencing something mystical or religious doesn't provide evidence to me. We have all read reports of weeping statues, visitations by angels/gods, images of Mary/Jesus everywhere, and "Allah" in fish and tomatoes; the list is seemingly endless.

I tried to make sense of religion for a long time and I never could. When I learned more about science the physical world (and the people in it) started making a lot more sense to me. I honestly don't know what kind of evidence it would take for me to suddenly believe in gods. What if I heard a god's voice in my head? Probably an auditory hallucination. What if a god appeared before me? Probably a visual hallucination. What if a god emailed me? Probably spam. Those are my rational explanations to "mystical" experiences.

What I think is that the mystical or religious experiences cannot be conclusively proven or disproven. That makes me an agnostic, not an atheist.

 

[transferosome]

And how do I know that's not the case? For all I know, I could be a figment of someone else's dream. For all I know, I could be in a coma or a mental institution. My observable world makes sense to me now. If it suddenly started to not make sense, I would not jump to a "gods are real" conclusion.

Other people seeing something or experiencing something mystical or religious doesn't provide evidence to me. We have all read reports of weeping statues, visitations by angels/gods, images of Mary/Jesus everywhere, and "Allah" in fish and tomatoes; the list is seemingly endless.

I tried to make sense of religion for a long time and I never could. I learned more about science and the physical world (and the people in it) started making a lot more sense to me. I honestly don't know what kind of evidence it would take for me to suddenly believe in gods. What if I heard a god's voice in my head? Probably an auditory hallucination. What if a god appeared before me? Probably a visual hallucination. What if a god emailed me? Probably spam. Those are my rational explanations to "mystical" experiences.

What I think is that the mystical or religious experiences cannot be conclusively proven or disproven. That makes me an agnostic, not an atheist.

OK, a lot of this is playing devil's advocate. Remember, I'm exploring the limits of my own rationality and belief here as well as asking people to explore theirs...

I accept that if if the universe stopped making sense it would be wise to give the old noggin a check-up. However, if you were to selectively use mental illness as an excuse to ignore a mountain of (hypothetical) evidence in favour of a god, you would be guilty of irrational bias. Just as irrational as the Inquisition were when they held Galileo for saying we're not as imporrtant as we thought. It would smack of a strong, unshakable belief in no god - or so-called 'hard' atheism.

Remember, all I'm asking for is something which would make you look twice, consider interesting, consider worthy of further research. Not necessarily 'sudden belief'. We're rational thinkers - it's not 'all or nothing'.

There's literally an infinity of possibilities out there and this is just a thought experiment. Can't you think of even one? It can be as ludicrous as you like, we're talking about an omnipotent being here

What about back when you were looking deeply into religion? What would have convinced you - or made you think twice - then?

 

[strathmeyer]

I would accept absolutely any proof at all.

 

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I don't think anything could make me believe in any god. I tried earnestly for almost 20 years and found not even a shred of "faith". Not only could I not find it, but no one could tell me how to find it. I sincerely asked family, friends, church-goers, and church leaders (preachers, ministers, elders, etc). They would always say things like "Read the Bible" or "You just have to believe" or, my personal favorite, "You're a sinner and you're going to hell." I tried and prayed so hard for so many years; in the end, I felt nothing but disillusioned. Even if a god someday "appeared" and/or "spoke" to me, I'd probably think that I was crazy. Unless it was Mr Skinny, of course.

Religions and the idea of gods just never made sense to me, even as a child. On the other hand, science makes quite a lot of sense to me. The more I found out about anthropology, socialogy, biology, and psychiatry, the more I realized that the answers I was looking for were not in churches or holy books.

This is my story too. But, the order of it all, tells me that it has to have a designer. "Something" most responsible for IT. The "something" that makes it go. Humans "feel," and give that something voice. We see the "voice" as the many religions that essentially point to the same place, and through science, that knows; "there has to be a reason."