Before We Discuss Whether God Exists, I Have A Question

[Ravenshire]

So, Huggies has jack shit. As suspected.

[Simon Moon]

So, present it or shut the fuck up.

If you had actual, testable, verifiable evidence you could win a fucking Nobel prize, but all you do is talk shit. Put up or shut up Huggies.

Who said anything about testable? If God was testable then he wouldn't be supernatural would he? Not all evidence is testable... must I point out scientific beliefs you hold that are in no way testable? So you can sit down.

If the god you believe in, interacts with the natural world (performing miracles, healing people, etc) then in fact, there is something to test.

Most of the Christians I know, claim to have a 'personal relationship with God/Jesus'. They are claiming to be "God detectors". That is a testable claim.

If they claim that god heals people, that is also a testable claim.

[SteveII]

Who said anything about testable? If God was testable then he wouldn't be supernatural would he? Not all evidence is testable... must I point out scientific beliefs you hold that are in no way testable? So you can sit down.

If the god you believe in, interacts with the natural world (performing miracles, healing people, etc) then in fact, there is something to test.

Most of the Christians I know, claim to have a 'personal relationship with God/Jesus'. They are claiming to be "God detectors". That is a testable claim.

If they claim that god heals people, that is also a testable claim.

I'm not sure that's true.

All you could test for was a known naturalistic cause. Absent that, most atheists will just claim miracles have unknown naturalistic causes. 

Most atheists deny the personal experiences of Christians as some sort of delusion/misrepresentation/misunderstanding/confusion. There is nothing to 'test' because the other side of the equation is supernatural and as a result, cannot be detected in a lab.

[LadyForCamus]

How convenient...

[SteveII]

How convenient...

No, it's rather inconvenient. However, the fact that miracles are untestable comes from the very definition of miracle and logic and not some desire to hide the cause for some other purpose.

[Whateverist]

Who said anything about testable? If God was testable then he wouldn't be supernatural would he? Not all evidence is testable... must I point out scientific beliefs you hold that are in no way testable? So you can sit down.

If the god you believe in, interacts with the natural world (performing miracles, healing people, etc) then in fact, there is something to test.

Most of the Christians I know, claim to have a 'personal relationship with God/Jesus'. They are claiming to be "God detectors". That is a testable claim.

If they claim that god heals people, that is also a testable claim.

I think the idea of the xtian God is supposed to be something like Barbara Eden in the old sitcom "I Dream of Genie" but maybe on steroids.  Not only is God alleged to be able to pop things into/out of existence or move/change them, He could even simultaneously reveal a miracle to one person while someone like ourselves stood by looking in the same direction and saw nothing.  God doesn't just work in mysterious ways, He practices causeless magic which conforms to no rule but His own whim.  Talk about gullible.

[Pat Mustard]

If the god you believe in, interacts with the natural world (performing miracles, healing people, etc) then in fact, there is something to test.

Most of the Christians I know, claim to have a 'personal relationship with God/Jesus'. They are claiming to be "God detectors". That is a testable claim.

If they claim that god heals people, that is also a testable claim.

I'm not sure that's true.

All you could test for was a known naturalistic cause. Absent that, most atheists will just claim miracles have unknown naturalistic causes. 

Most atheists deny the personal experiences of Christians as some sort of delusion/misrepresentation/misunderstanding/confusion. There is nothing to 'test' because the other side of the equation is supernatural and as a result, cannot be detected in a lab.

Of course we're going to deny your unevidenced & unvarifiable assertions Steve. You "personal experiences" have as much credibility as me saying on the stand that I witnessed a murder in Aurora, Ilinois, after it was proven I was in work in Clonmel, Tipperary at the time of the incident.

[SteveII]

Anything can be presented as "evidence". But it's only useful if it is convincing. If it only convinces the person presenting it and no one else, they may as well not bother even mentioning it. No one needs permission or validation to believe what they already believe.

By your own logic, the tens of millions of adults that become Christians each year would suggest your general view is wrong. They were presented with "evidence". They were convinced. Process repeats. 

Personally, I want to base my beliefs on evidence that I think would be convincing to a rational, uninvested third party. That means that they should be able to investigate the evidence and come to the same conclusion as me, without having to take my word for anything. If I don't have this, then I will question why I believe the thing in the first place.

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PS: there can't even be any evidence for "God" until it's defined in such a way that its existence if falsifiable. It's just people rationalizing what they believe.

This is just straight up wrong. There is not any rational argument you could make that supports that evidence for God needs to be falsifiable. The principle of falsification is a scientific concept that was only ever meant to apply to scientific inquiries. It does not apply to any of the other vast stretches of human knowledge like: numbers and math, logic, ethics, aesthetics, human consciousness, scientific laws, and metaphysical truths. Ironically, the concept of falsification is itself not falsifiable. Since science cannot, by definition, even comment on the possibility of the supernatural, a scientific principle like falsificationism is so far off the mark as to be silly.

[Whateverist]

Anything can be presented as "evidence". But it's only useful if it is convincing. If it only convinces the person presenting it and no one else, they may as well not bother even mentioning it. No one needs permission or validation to believe what they already believe.

By your own logic, the tens of millions of adults that become Christians each year would suggest your general view is wrong. They were presented with "evidence". They were convinced. Process repeats. 

And the rush of xtian parents to home school and completely control their child's social sphere is evidence that xtians understand just how weak their 'evidence' really is.

It is like a gang. Keep the kids (recruits) under your thumb until you can get them to recruit others (where gangs use murder). Once their hands are dirty, they'll defend the gang just like mom and dad .. except it isn't working so well.

[robvalue]

What exactly are we meant to do with someone else's "personal experience"?

No one is qualified to conclude that any particular occurrence was the result of a cause which hasn't yet been shown to be real in the first place. At best it's just unexplained.

It's funny how all this magic stuff occurring everywhere around believers has completely avoided me the entire 40 years I've been on this planet. Why is that, I wonder?