On the nature of evidence.

[Aoi Magi]

As for my standards of evidence, I have received numerous physical signs from God that he both listens to me and wants me to behave in certain ways, so I have no further requirement for evidence.

If he listens to you, please ask him
- Why did he put contradictory, immoral instructions in the only book which is supposed to describe him?
- Why does he appear differently to every believer, and at times with totally contradictory appearances?

[Minimalist]

it might be unreasonable to ask God for something so major that he has to make the laws of physics jump through hoops. He has to take into account the butterfly effect this would have on everything in your immediate vicinity and beyond.

So your 'god' is so inept that he couldn't prevent such effects?

Interesting 'god' you have there.

Sounds like a real putz.

[trmof]

I would like to know what the atheists on this forum WOULD consider to be persuasive evidence of God's existence.

First define your god and its attributes; because we don't have a god to examine, we have to depend on what is being claimed about it.

If you are interested in scientific evidence of the existence of God, how would one go about acquiring this evidence?

That depends on whatever you're proposing for this god. Does it interact with the Universe in any way? Does it answer prayers and so on? All those claims are testable.

Assuming God is a personality and not just a force of nature, it would seem that it would be impossible to scientifically test for the existence of his personality and it's characteristics; just as it is impossible at the moment to come up with a functioning theory of another human's personality other than "It does what it does when it does it, and sometimes it doesn't."

Why would you think this god would be scientifically untestable, unless you're defining it to be so? Making your god claims unfalsifiable isn't a good thing; it just means they cannot be tested. And that's a double-edged sword, since you cannot then go on to make any claims about this god, including whether it's even there at all.

It's theoretically possible that if you had all the information in the universe available to you, you would be able to predict another person's behavior accurately. But given that this is currently unfeasable, it would seem to me that experiential and testimonial evidence are the only two avenues through which we could currently examine the possible existence of God.

No, you don't need all the information in the Universe to do this. Advertisers, supermarket designers and the like have developed it almost to the level of art. Plus we already know that, unlike gods, other people exist and must have personalities. Unless you're advocating solipsism, in which case I have no reason to believe you even exist. Not to mention I would have to account for why my mind created all the greatest and the least music in history, from Beethoven to the Beatles and on to Bieber. And if my mind created Justin Bieber, I deserve to be tried for crimes against humanity.

So what could a God do that would personally convince you of it's existence? I presume for most of you that if he started talking to you personally, you would simply assume that this was mental illness.

Not even close. I would investigate that option first, to eliminate the more common and obvious explanations first. If at the end of it the only option left to me was that a god was in fact speaking to me, I would have to accept that. Then I would track it to its lair and destroy it.

So if a God with a personality WERE to exist, setting the standard of evidence this high would be putting him in a position where it's impossible for him communicate with you in any way whatsoever.

It's generally not the atheist making whatever god is being touted unfalsifiable. Besides, a god which would find anything impossible isn't exactly what I would call worthy of the title.

My definition of a God would be an intelligent universe-wide personality with power to influence physical matter, either through explicit means, or simply as a result of being the origin of the laws which effect that matter, in the same way that your current thoughts may simply be the result of their initial starting position. This being could have numerous good reasons for self-imposing rules of conduct concerning when it is and is not appropriate to interfere with human affairs, and if this were the case this God would be limited in it's options for how to directly communicate with people. The point of the post is that there may be a God that exists that is at the same time unfalsifiable.

Regarding advertisers predicting peoples actions, this is would fall under sociology and psychology, which are both considered "soft" sciences for the exact reason that they are only able to make non falsifiable predictions; I'm talking specifically about making a falsifiable prediction about the future decisions of an INDIVIDUAL based on the decisions they've already made, which science is currently unable to do. Perhaps at some point in the future neurology and physics will combine in a way to allow for this. However, the fact that it is currently not subject to scientific scrutiny does not negate the fact that your personality exists.

[Anomalocaris]

It is a mark of honesty to start any such discussion by clarifying your own position, rather than by asking leading questions without nailing down your own position so as to be able to slip and slide and never admit defeat.

So what is your stamndard of evidence and why is that satisfactory?

They aren't leading questions, they are simply questions. I never claimed to have any beliefs whatsoever; I'm interested in yours, which you have still failed to state. As this is a polite conversation and not a college debate, there are no winning and losing conditions.

As for my standards of evidence, I have received numerous physical signs from God that he both listens to me and wants me to behave in certain ways, so I have no further requirement for evidence.

What is the standard of evidence you used to evaluate these signs such that you are satisfied not only to regard them them as signs, but signs form a particular diety amongst the infinite number conceivable deities, which in turn is a infinitesimal subset of conceivable forces and entities any all kind that can be imaged to be able to generate these signs?

[trmof]

As for my standards of evidence, I have received numerous physical signs from God that he both listens to me and wants me to behave in certain ways, so I have no further requirement for evidence.

If he listens to you, please ask him
- Why did he put contradictory, immoral instructions in the only book which is supposed to describe him?
- Why does he appear differently to every believer, and at times with totally contradictory appearances?

I would suggest that you ask him those questions directly. If he doesn't answer then there are three possible explanations: Either he isn't there; He is there but he isn't interested in talking to you for some reason; or He's there but your personal prejudices against certain types of ideas and information, for example conversational hints that can't be stated outright, are making you unable to see read and respond to his overtures. All three of those propositions are non falsifiable from a scientific perspective, and though you may consider one more likely than the others, this says absolutely nothing about which one is factual. That's why this post is labeled under philosophy.

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They aren't leading questions, they are simply questions. I never claimed to have any beliefs whatsoever; I'm interested in yours, which you have still failed to state. As this is a polite conversation and not a college debate, there are no winning and losing conditions.

As for my standards of evidence, I have received numerous physical signs from God that he both listens to me and wants me to behave in certain ways, so I have no further requirement for evidence.

What is the standard of evidence you used to evaluate these signs such that you are satisfied not only to regard them them as signs, but signs form a particular diety amongst the infinite number conceivable deities, which in turn is a infinitesimal subset of conceivable forces and entities any all kind that can be imaged to be able to generate these signs?

My standard of evidence is intuition and common sense, but that means nothing outside of my own head. The question that follows from that, and the original question really, is "What form would intuitive evidence have to take in your own life in order for it to be enough evidence to convince you that a superhuman entity was trying to make contact with you, and how would you distinguish between that evidence and mental illness?

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it might be unreasonable to ask God for something so major that he has to make the laws of physics jump through hoops. He has to take into account the butterfly effect this would have on everything in your immediate vicinity and beyond.

So your 'god' is so inept that he couldn't prevent such effects?

Interesting 'god' you have there.

Sounds like a real putz.

You are also unable to prevent such effects. Would this also make you a putz?

[Anomalocaris]

Exactly. No one can deny people see things. We want some standard of evidence that would have provision for achieving high probability of excluding "people seeing things".

You effectively have no standard of evidence and can be convinced by a whole hoste of mental phenomenon which is other cases have been show to be creations of the mind unrelated to reality.

You are arguing we should not lower our standard of evidence but ditch them all together, and accept not what feels good to us, but what feels good to you.

[trmof]

Exactly. No one can deny people see things. We want some standard of evidence that would have provision for achieving high probability of excluding "people seeing things".

You effectively have no standard of evidence and can be convinced by a whole hoste of mental phenomenon which is other cases have been show to be creations of the mind unrelated to reality.

You are arguing we should not lower our standard of evidence but ditch them all together, and accept not what feels good to us, but what feels good to you.

No, I'm simply proposing that if such a God existed, your standard of evidence would prevent him from letting you know. Your standard of evidence for non falsifiable propositions is the same as your standard for falsifiable propositions. That's fine, but philosophy is all about exploring non falsifiable propositions through intuition, personal experience and logic. That's why I chose to post this under philosophy. I would propose that your standard of evidence prevents you from even discussing philosophical matters in the first place.

[Aoi Magi]

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If he listens to you, please ask him
- Why did he put contradictory, immoral instructions in the only book which is supposed to describe him?
- Why does he appear differently to every believer, and at times with totally contradictory appearances?

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I would suggest that you ask him those questions directly. If he doesn't answer then there are three possible explanations: Either he isn't there; He is there but he isn't interested in talking to you for some reason; or He's there but your personal prejudices against certain types of ideas and information, for example conversational hints that can't be stated outright, are making you unable to see read and respond to his overtures. All three of those propositions are non falsifiable from a scientific perspective, and though you may consider one more likely than the others, this says absolutely nothing about which one is factual. That's why this post is labeled under philosophy.

Sorry, but at this point, he is your imaginary buddy, so I can't ask him anything. Plus if I do ask, I have no way of determining what happens next (if), is just in my head or not. Since you are the one claiming a direct line to him, you are in a much better position to ask him things.

If he is an omnipotent being, and has interfered with nature many times, and wants us to believe in him, then proving his existence to us should be trivial for him. Heck he could just beam the knowledge to everyone and be done with it. He is supposedly communicating with millions of believers already (while also giving them misleading information).

[Mudhammam]

I think that you are taking standards which apply to things we can scientifically test for and applying them to things which we can't scientifically test for. You're discounting that any number of things about the universe could be true simply because we aren't currently able to measure them, which is a fine skeptical analysis, but lacking as a philosophical analysis and is the reason philosophy exists in the first place. There is no reason to dicount one form of evidence simply because another form is better. I would argue that THIS places limits on our ability to examine what is and isn't true.

Wrong. I discounted nothing except for your philosophically and scientifically bankrupt notion of presupposing superfluous causes on account of utter ignorance.

[trmof]

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I would suggest that you ask him those questions directly. If he doesn't answer then there are three possible explanations: Either he isn't there; He is there but he isn't interested in talking to you for some reason; or He's there but your personal prejudices against certain types of ideas and information, for example conversational hints that can't be stated outright, are making you unable to see read and respond to his overtures. All three of those propositions are non falsifiable from a scientific perspective, and though you may consider one more likely than the others, this says absolutely nothing about which one is factual. That's why this post is labeled under philosophy.

Sorry, but at this point, he is your imaginary buddy, so I can't ask him anything. Plus if I do ask, I have no way of determining what happens next (if), is just in my head or not. Since you are the one claiming a direct line to him, you are in a much better position to ask him things.

If he is an omnipotent being, and has interfered with nature many times, and wants us to believe in him, then proving his existence to us should be trivial for him. Heck he could just beam the knowledge to everyone and be done with it. He is supposedly communicating with millions of believers already (while also giving them misleading information).

You have no way of determining whether EVERTHYING is happening in your head or not. It doesn't prevent you from doing so with regularity.

Also, the God of the Bible never claims to be omnipotent, and he often specifically puts some limits on himself about interfering with free will. The god you are describing is not the one you are asking me to talk to.

As a side note I ask him things all the time and he answers with regularity. It is not my responsibility to be a go-between between him and you.

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I think that you are taking standards which apply to things we can scientifically test for and applying them to things which we can't scientifically test for. You're discounting that any number of things about the universe could be true simply because we aren't currently able to measure them, which is a fine skeptical analysis, but lacking as a philosophical analysis and is the reason philosophy exists in the first place. There is no reason to dicount one form of evidence simply because another form is better. I would argue that THIS places limits on our ability to examine what is and isn't true.

Wrong. I discounted nothing except for your philosophically and scientifically bankrupt notion of presupposing superfluous causes on account of utter ignorance.

You have explicitly discounted any form of evidence less impressive than God performing an Old Testament miracle on your behalf. If that's your standard, own it. But doing so would prevent any supernatural being from making contact with you through any evidence which doesn't meet this standard. If that's your standard, fine, but you are objectively discounted certain forms of evidence. Whether or not that is wise is your own decision to make. I'm simply stating the proposition