What type of "evidence" of God would an atheist accept?

[Michael]

I'm curious to know what type of 'evidence' of God that the resident atheists around here might accept, and find compelling? At the present moment, do you believe that there is "no" evidence of God, little evidence of God or just not convincing enough evidence of God for your personal tastes? Do you believe that the topic of God can be studied scientifically? Must all cause/effect relationship be demonstrated empirically in controlled experimentation to your personal satisfaction, or would you accept simple uncontrolled observations as a form of "evidence", even if it's less than convincing evidence?

 

[Goatee]

A smack across the face by St Michael the Archangel! Lol

 

[faroukfarouk]

Let me suggest that the person needs to want to believe. Because those who don't want to, are likely to continue to disbelieve against all indications to the contrary: Hebrews 11.6.

 

[Speedwell]

The existence of God is an unfalsifiable proposition. If you are talking about "evidence" then you must be talking about a theology, not the existence of God. What theology do you have in mind?

 

[AirPo]

None that I can think of. But that really just boils down to semantics I guess. If it's not natural, wouldn't accept it. If it's natural, then it can't be evidence for the supernatural.

 

[Halbhh]

I'm curious to know what type of 'evidence' of God that the resident atheists around here might accept, and find compelling? At the present moment, do you believe that there is "no" evidence of God, little evidence of God or just not convincing enough evidence of God for your personal tastes? Do you believe that the topic of God can be studied scientifically? Must all cause/effect relationship be demonstrated empirically in controlled experimentation to your personal satisfaction, or would you accept simple uncontrolled observations as a form of "evidence", even if it's less than convincing evidence?

I read broadly, including great thinkers like Lao Tzu (The Tao), Emerson, and pieces of so many thinkers, anyone that was well known I could find, and of course also Jesus of Nazareth included. Eventually I was noticing Jesus's statements were an intersection set of other ideas from around the world, like Buddhist compassion and such. An intersection set much of it, but what about some of the radical things like "love your enemies".....?

I remember deciding to test some of the radical ideas by direct test, because I thought -- 'he's got a lot of things right clearly, like 'love your neighbor', and so what about this radical idea, could it work, even though I don't think it will?'

So I did test it, which was difficult of course, to show love to someone that was disdainful towards me, the only persisting enemy I could find in life even after about 35 years, and the hardest to ever love of anyone I knew at that time.

So I did, at least in actions and words and attitude, and even to some extent in truly trying to see things from his point of view, and have sympathy, inside my own thoughts.

The result was shocking and really amazing to me.

This (very troubled) person that seemed so arrogant and dismissive and casually belittling, disregarding, etc., suddenly turned into a warm and friendly person who seemed to genuinely esteem me.

Boy was I surprised.

I went on and tested every statement of Jesus that I could test, in a variety of ways. What if I just forgave a person even though they did not deserve it? Tried it. It works!

They all worked, and more, they worked really great. Giving results far better than every other way of being I had tried -- my life became rich with more love and well functioning friendships. This wasn't a one-off -- I was a person that tried anything and everything that seemed interesting, so it was comparing to a lot of various other ways to live, including a lot of stuff like healing old emotions, owning your stuff, meditating, etc., all of which are good, and help anyone, and worked also, but.....not nearly so dramatically to produce such total and far reaching results as His ideas.

So.... you see, after a perfect string of 100% working well ideas with no failures among them, I began to wonder if it could be that most anything He said was true....so I read more and thought on it more, trying to piece it all together with life without presuming He was divine.

Later I decided to find out if it was all real, and God existed. I reasoned that if God existed, then He would answer a prayer to be brought to Him. And so I took a leap of faith, then, and prayed sincerely, for a moment, one day, "God, make a way from me to you. ...... Bring me to you."

I prayed it with real faith in that moment, a leap of faith. And as Him being God. As actually praying to God Himself. So I was humble before Him in that prayer.

He did.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Easy, I am not sure. But if an omnipotent omniscient God exists he would know what evidence I would require. Why hasn't he supplied it?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I read broadly, including great thinkers like Lao Tzu (The Tao), Emerson, and pieces of so many thinkers, anyone that was well known I could find, and of course also Jesus of Nazareth included. Eventually I was noticing Jesus's statements were an intersection set of other ideas from around the world, like Buddhist compassion and such. An intersection set much of it, but what about some of the radical things like "love your enemies".....?

I remember deciding to test some of the radical ideas by direct test, because I thought -- 'he's got a lot of things right clearly, like 'love your neighbor', and so what about this radical idea, could it work, even though I don't think it will?'

So I did test it, which was difficult of course, to show love to someone that was disdainful towards me, the only persisting enemy I could find in life even after about 35 years, and the hardest to ever love of anyone I knew at that time.

So I did, at least in actions and words and attitude, and even to some extent in truly trying to see things from his point of view, and have sympathy, inside my own thoughts.

The result was shocking and really amazing to me.

This (very troubled) person that seemed so arrogant and dismissive and casually belittling, disregarding, etc., suddenly turned into a warm and friendly person who seemed to genuinely esteem me.

Boy was I surprised.

I went on and tested every statement of Jesus that I could test, in a variety of ways. What if I just forgave a person even though they did not deserve it? Tried it. It works!

They all worked, and more, they worked really great. Giving results far better than every other way of being I had tried -- my life became rich with more love and well functioning friendships. This wasn't a one-off -- I was a person that tried anything and everything that seemed interesting, so it was comparing to a lot of various other ways to live, including a lot of stuff like healing old emotions, owning your stuff, meditating, etc., all of which are good, and help anyone, and worked also, but.....not nearly so dramatically to produce such total and far reaching results as His ideas.

So.... you see, after a perfect string of 100% working well ideas with no failures among them, I began to wonder if it could be that most anything He said was true....so I read more and thought on it more, trying to piece it all together with life without presuming He was divine.

Later I decided to find out if it was all real, and God existed. I reasoned that if God existed, then He would answer a prayer to be brought to Him. And so I took a leap of faith, then, and prayed sincerely, for a moment, one day, "God, make a way from me to you. ...... Bring me to you."

I prayed it with real faith in that moment, a leap of faith. And as Him being God. As actually praying to God Himself. So I was humble before Him in that prayer.

He did.

The odds are huge that you did not test these ideas properly. Your own bias would have altered the results. To test such concepts properly you would need to set up a double blind situation, where neither the person being tested or the person doing the test could know the philosophy behind the tests given to them.

When it comes to mainstream religion a proper test that would give meaningful results is almost impossible since people tend to have a knowledge of the religious philosophies that they grew up with.

 

[Michael]

The existence of God is an unfalsifiable proposition.

That same criticism is also true of existence of exotic forms of matter, exotic forms of energy, multiverses, gravitons, SUSY particles, etc. The fact various ideas cannot be falsified never stopped anyone from presenting 'evidence' to support/refute these ideas and study them "scientifically". Why would the topic of God require "falsification" simply to be studied scientifically?

If you are talking about "evidence" then you must be talking about a theology, not the existence of God. What theology do you have in mind?

I'm not talking about theology at all, I'm talking about physics and science ultimately. If concepts like LCDM can be studied "scientifically" and "evidence" can exist for something like "dark energy", then the topic of God can also be studied from the perspective of science and "evidence" too. In science, "evidence" of hypothetical concepts can be based on the effect which is observed in uncontrolled observation, not just from cause/effect relationships which can be studied in the lab in controlled experimentation.

 

[Michael]

I read broadly, including great thinkers like Lao Tzu (The Tao), Emerson, and pieces of so many thinkers, anyone that was well known I could find, and of course also Jesus of Nazareth included. Eventually I was noticing Jesus's statements were an intersection set of other ideas from around the world, like Buddhist compassion and such. An intersection set much of it, but what about some of the radical things like "love your enemies".....?

I remember deciding to test some of the radical ideas by direct test, because I thought -- 'he's got a lot of things right clearly, like 'love your neighbor', and so what about this radical idea, could it work, even though I don't think it will?'

So I did test it, which was difficult of course, to show love to someone that was disdainful towards me, the only persisting enemy I could find in life even after about 35 years, and the hardest to ever love of anyone I knew at that time.

So I did, at least in actions and words and attitude, and even to some extent in truly trying to see things from his point of view, and have sympathy, inside my own thoughts.

The result was shocking and really amazing to me.

This (very troubled) person that seemed so arrogant and dismissive and casually belittling, disregarding, etc., suddenly turned into a warm and friendly person who seemed to genuinely esteem me.

Boy was I surprised.

I went on and tested every statement of Jesus that I could test, in a variety of ways. What if I just forgave a person even though they did not deserve it? Tried it. It works!

They all worked, and more, they worked really great. Giving results far better than every other way of being I had tried -- my life became rich with more love and well functioning friendships. This wasn't a one-off -- I was a person that tried anything and everything that seemed interesting, so it was comparing to a lot of various other ways to live, including a lot of stuff like healing old emotions, owning your stuff, meditating, etc., all of which are good, and help anyone, and worked also, but.....not nearly so dramatically to produce such total and far reaching results as His ideas.

So.... you see, after a perfect string of 100% working well ideas with no failures among them, I began to wonder if it could be that most anything He said was true....so I read more and thought on it more, trying to piece it all together with life without presuming He was divine.

Later I decided to find out if it was all real, and God existed. I reasoned that if God existed, then He would answer a prayer to be brought to Him. And so I took a leap of faith, then, and prayed sincerely, for a moment, one day, "God, make a way from me to you. ...... Bring me to you."

I prayed it with real faith in that moment, a leap of faith. And as Him being God. As actually praying to God Himself. So I was humble before Him in that prayer.

He did.

 

[Halbhh]

The odds are huge that you did not test these ideas properly. Your own bias would have altered the results. To test such concepts properly you would need to set up a double blind situation, where neither the person being tested or the person doing the test could know the philosophy behind the tests given to them.

When it comes to mainstream religion a proper test that would give meaningful results is almost impossible since people tend to have a knowledge of the religious philosophies that they grew up with.

I merely tested them for myself, of course.

My bias -- I didn't expect 'love your enemy' to work well.
I expected perhaps a slight and likely temporary change or that possibly it might backfire.

But to do a good test (for myself), I gave it a real try, because I thought that would be the only valid test (for myself).

(my background is in the hard sciences, and an idea about how to live life is not a hard science thing, but instead a way to live, a philosophy, and the only test is a personal test for yourself, on your own, I think)

 

[Subduction Zone]

I merely tested them for myself, of course.

My bias -- I didn't expect 'love your enemy' to work well.
I expected perhaps a slight and likely temporary change or that possibly it might backfire.

But to do a good test (for myself), I gave it a real try, because I thought that would be the only valid test (for myself).

(my background is in the hard sciences, and an idea about how to live life is not a hard science thing, but instead a way to live, a philosophy, and the only test is a personal test for yourself, on your own, I think)

Sorry, but the problem with bias is that you can't recognize it when it influences your tests. Your "tests" are worthless because of that. To be of any value at all the human element of tester and even observer must be minimized.

And I can't test properly either. I know that I have an inherent bias that would affect such tests.

You need to find a valid way of testing.

 

[Michael]

Easy, I am not sure.

Fair enough. Would you say there is no evidence of God, very limited evidence of God, or less than convincing evidence of God?

But if an omnipotent omniscient God exists he would know what evidence I would require. Why hasn't he supplied it?

I would say that you're making assumptions about God (omnipotent/omniscient/gender/motives) which might relate to only a single definition of God to start with. Why start looking for evidence of God, or lack thereof, that way?

 

[Halbhh]

Sorry, but the problem with bias is that you can't recognize it when it influences your tests. Your "tests" are worthless because of that. To be of any value at all the human element of tester and even observer must be minimized.

And I can't test properly either. I know that I have an inherent bias that would affect such tests.

You need to find a valid way of testing.

Sure, I agree with you likely about how bias works, as I think all people are biased, and it cannot be avoided, but at the very best only mitigated partially.

My test is merely suggestive, of course. I am presuming you would only take it as suggestive.

It's like if a person that had taken an airline flight claimed to you they had seen lighting head upward from the top of the highest clouds on a flight, up towards space. If you had never seen that, you wouldn't consider their report to you to be proof, of course. Rather, you'd need to see for yourself, literally, or by evidence such as a video recording, etc., etc. (These are now proven to exist, and are called "sprites". Interestingly the first attempt to observe them scientifically failed, even after hours of what were thought to be optimum conditions.)

But even more than this example, this is about a way to live, and thus cannot have 'data' of any kind except only the personal alone.

In other words, you have to find out if it works, yourself, in person, yourself, for you. See? I don't presume otherwise.

 

[Michael]

Sorry, but the problem with bias is that you can't recognize it when it influences your tests. Your "tests" are worthless because of that. To be of any value at all the human element of tester and even observer must be minimized.

Maybe so, but the human element is pretty much unavoidable the moment one deviates from empirical physics which can be as high as 95 percent of the time in some areas of 'science'.

And I can't test properly either. I know that I have an inherent bias that would affect such tests.

You couldn't go out and practice "loving your enemies" and noting the observable effects?

You need to find a valid way of testing.

What would be a valid test in your opinion?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Fair enough. Would you say there is no evidence of God, very limited evidence of God, or less than convincing evidence of God?

I personally do not know of any reliable evidence of God.

I would say that you're making assumptions about God (omnipotent/omniscient/gender/motives) which might relate to only a single definition of God to start with. Why start looking for evidence of God, or lack thereof, that way?

No assumptions about gender, and I am going by the claims of Christians for their God when I say omnipotent and omniscient. I would probably have to have a different example for a god of limited ability and knowledge. And the motives also come from Christians. For other gods, as I said, I would have to think up of other evidence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Sure, I agree with you likely about how bias works, as I think all people are biased, and it cannot be avoided, but at the very best only mitigated partially.

My test is merely suggestive, of course. I am presuming you would only take it as suggestive.

It's like if a person that had taken an airline flight claimed to you they had seen lighting head upward from the top of the highest clouds on a flight, up towards space. If you had never seen that, you wouldn't consider their report to you to be proof, of course. Rather, you'd need to see for yourself, literally, or by evidence such as a video recording, etc., etc. (These are now proven to exist, and are called "sprites". Interestingly the first attempt to observe them scientifically failed, even after hours of what were thought to be optimum conditions.)

But even more than this example, this is about a way to live, and thus cannot have 'data' of any kind except only the personal alone.

In other words, you have to find out if it works, yourself, in person, yourself, for you. See? I don't presume otherwise.

The short answer is still that your test is of no value.

 

[ananda]

I'm curious to know what type of 'evidence' of God that the resident atheists around here might accept, and find compelling? At the present moment, do you believe that there is "no" evidence of God, little evidence of God or just not convincing enough evidence of God for your personal tastes? Do you believe that the topic of God can be studied scientifically? Must all cause/effect relationship be demonstrated empirically in controlled experimentation to your personal satisfaction, or would you accept simple uncontrolled observations as a form of "evidence", even if it's less than convincing evidence?

I cannot think of any such evidence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Maybe so, but the human element is pretty much unavoidable the moment one deviates from empirical physics which can be as high as 95 percent of the time in some areas of 'science'.

Right, that is why such "tests" are of no use. They are all but guaranteed to be fatally flawed.

You couldn't go out and practice "loving your enemies" and noting the observable effects?

You could, but that idea is hardly unique to Christianity.

What would be a valid test in your opinion?

I can't really think of one. But then I am not the one claiming that one can do a test. Now you are simply shifting the burden of proof. The burden of proof belongs upon the person that claims one CAN do a test. All I have to do is to show how the test is flawed.

 

[Halbhh]

The short answer is still that your test is of no value.

"Value" meaning to me what works to sharply improve my life, then the objective answer for me in my own life is the test and the results are of very large value.

Like if I had a disease, and it got cured, and then I felt far better.

Like that. Valuable.