Certainly i agree with the OP besides being slightly more towards believing in it than disbelieving it.

But the thing is, he might not even /care for what we believe, why should it? It might not even be conscious of something that would be like a bacteria on his belly asking for proof for his existence.
Or maybe he just wants to have fun watching stuff handling by itself? Surelly it's boring to be eternal.

Something testable.

A personal performance while performing a miracle would be good.

Even if that happened I wouldn't expect anyone else to believe me unless this god person appeared to everyone.

Here's my test.

Some guy shows up and claims he's god. I invite him to follow me into a nursing home of my choice. I will then select a 90-ish something female alzheimer's patient sitting in a wheelchair and drooling into a cup. I will hold on to both her shoulders and 'god' will have to rejuvenate her into a 20 year old hottie who specializes in blow jobs without touching her.

Any guy who can do that deserves to be worshiped.

(September 16, 2014 at 7:48 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Here's my test.

Some guy shows up and claims he's god. I invite him to follow me into a nursing home of my choice. I will then select a 90-ish something female alzheimer's patient sitting in a wheelchair and drooling into a cup. I will hold on to both her shoulders and 'god' will have to rejuvenate her into a 20 year old hottie who specializes in blow jobs without touching her.

Any guy who can do that deserves to be worshiped.

But what if she rejuvenates into a 20 year old hot lesbian?

Let's say God showed up on a global scale and made his presence known to everyone on Earth. Every person on the planet who is able to comprehend what is going on, does so. Then, he says goodbye and vanishes. Would this be evidence even though its an unrepeatable instance? Future generations would have to rely on our recorded word. Would it change anything if the whole event was captured on film? Nevermind that this would pretty much make god look like an asshole; what would this say about the nature of evidence, if anything at all?

(September 16, 2014 at 7:50 pm)Beccs Wrote:

(September 16, 2014 at 7:48 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Here's my test.

Some guy shows up and claims he's god. I invite him to follow me into a nursing home of my choice. I will then select a 90-ish something female alzheimer's patient sitting in a wheelchair and drooling into a cup. I will hold on to both her shoulders and 'god' will have to rejuvenate her into a 20 year old hottie who specializes in blow jobs without touching her.

Any guy who can do that deserves to be worshiped.

But what if she rejuvenates into a 20 year old hot lesbian?

As long as she gives head it's close enough.

Many times, it is hard to tell what would be good evidence for a claim.

For example, before the microscope was invented, how would people know what would be good evidence to explain infectious diseases?

If evidence is discovered for the existence of a god, it should be something as solid as the evidence that bacteria and viruses cause infectious diseases. Anything else sounds like wishful thinking to me.

If not, then as others have stated, anything that qualifies as a god should know what would convince me of his/her/its/their existence. And should be able to communicate it with me.

I guess for me, part of the problem is the whole setup has set the burden of proof so much higher than it would otherwise have to be.

What we have now is a claim that a supernatural god exists, but is hidden, and that he used to do powerful, observable miracles a long time ago. All of the history associated with him happened in an area on the globe about the size of a dime. He currently only performs miracles that cannot be verified, and he only reveals himself in personal, non-verifiable ways to some people.

So, looking at that, it looks completely indistinguishable from any other ancient mythology. Picture, instead, this same god revealing himself to all peoples throughout history, making meaningful and useful predictions they couldn't know about (like the germ theory of disease), and him still showing up in verifiable ways to this day, with no 2,000 year gap in seeing him. That would set the bar a lot lower.

As it is, even if he showed up right now, I'd be really skeptical of the whole thing, just because the entire setup is so ridiculous.

If I had proof, that wouldn't lead to -belief-.

(September 16, 2014 at 7:50 pm)Beccs Wrote: But what if she rejuvenates into a 20 year old hot lesbian?

That would be proof that you were dealing with Yahweh.

As for the OP: I think the problem is that many people are wondering what it would take for me to believe in THEIR god. And if their god really did exist, then it would mean that everything that THEY believed --outside of the fact that he does exist-- would be utterly and completely wrong. And that would be good, because most of the gods that people have worshiped are horrible monsters who can do terrifying shit to you for apparently no reason at all.

I'm pretty convinced that YOUR god --the one that wrote such a sloppy book, who has left you hanging for centuries now, who hasn't lifted a finger to solve the problems that are his fault, who blames YOU for the problems that are HIS fault, who couldn't be bothered to write his own book, who couldn't bother to inspire guys to write a half-decent book, who pranced among the proles for centuries then hid away-- doesn't exist. If there's another one out there, I hope she's not the sort who thinks that smudges on a window are a good way to tell us she's there, and gives us some better clues to her existence.