Attn: Theists - What would it take to prove you wrong?

[Silver]

For the one unwilling to believe, nothing will convince them.

I did not have to read past this initial false statement to know the rest of your diatribe is pure bullshit.

Most atheists will contend that should real, verifiable evidence be provided to support the existence of a god they would believe that god exists.

What one learns from that god upon realizing the god is real, however, would then determine whether the god was worthy of worship, if it even required it. If the god is anything as portrayed in the bible, then he would not be worthy of worship whatsoever.

[Theo Zacharias]

Are you saying that if God exists, He is not able to affect this world in unreproducible way? Not just God, I think if there is an alien natural beings with technology million years more advanced than what we have now, they can easily affect this world without leaving any evidence at all that can be detected by our current technology if they want to.

You were talking about miracles, yes? I'm telling you it can be studied and analyzed. You're not understanding the reproducible part. It isn't the miracle that has to be reproduced, it's the analysis. If the miracle doesn't happen again, what we say is there aren't enough study samples. But if there are enough study samples (in reality there are multiple miracle claims that are very similar), then the analysis can be done. By controlling for confounding factors we group people with similar properties together such that they are "repeats" of each other. I don't know why I'm explaining this to you since you are so bent on giving god properties that cannot be studied. But this is how many scientific studies are performed. They have their weaknesses but IMO superior to lab studies for this type of investigation.

If you want to go with what you just said. Which is god affects the world in undetectable ways. Then I can say god doesn't affect the world at all. Those are 2 theories that can be generated from the same evidence: which is no evidence of interference. But your theory assumes god. Now you need to justify why it makes sense to make this assumption.

Edit: ok, there are more than 2 theories than can be generated. There are multiple: aliens/christian god/allah/hindu gods/thor/poseidon/zeus/ares/buddha/Gandalf/etc. etc. are interfering the world in undetectable ways. So you REALLY need a justification to say it's your god.

You're wrong if you said my argument assumes God. What I said is if God exists and if He wants to, then He can affect this world without leaving any evidence that we can detect. Note that this argument does not require assumption that God exists. It can be true even if God does not exist. For example, proposition "if Superman exists then he can fly" can be true even if Superman does not exist.

Also, don't forget that you are the one who claim that if God exist and affects the world in *anyway*, it must generate some form of evidence. What I'm doing is to refute this claim by arguing that maybe it generates some evidences but maybe not. I don't agree that it *must* generate evidence because it's possible that it does not generate any evidences.
Now, do you still hold to this claim especially the *anyway" part? Or you want to modify the *anyway* part?

I'm sure you realize how fast our technology advances in recent years. Can you imagine what kind of technology we will have in 100 years? How about in 1000 years? In million years?
Are you honestly said that you can't believe that a God or alien natural beings with technology far more advanced than what we have now cannot affect our world without leaving any evidence that can be detected by our current technology if they want to? You haven't answered this questions before.

[The Reality Salesman01]

@Discipulous,

Ahem...That's all fine and good as conjecture. But if God wanted to prove himself, he could do so quite easily. For he is all knowing? Yes? If he chose a method for revealing himself that he knew would not be believable, then he purposely did not reveal himself, and we're in the same boat we are in now. If he is not able to adequately reveal himself, which in all honesty shouldn't be that hard for an omnipotent God, then the God that cannot reveal himself is in fact not omnipotent and not a God. Do you see the box you've locked yourself in with this logic?

[Sword of Christ]

Verifiable evidence that does not require faith as its wobbly foundation.

Deism would be a good start that would be your scientific foundation. Deism is fairly pointless though so the next foundation is the religion/God that produced the best moral change and progress in the world (the fruits) and a religion that isn't based entirely on the personal experience of just one man (like most of them). So what you have there is a foundation as solid as it can get. All the evidence you need for a strong faith.

For starters, the god would have to manifest itself in a way that could be properly understood and studied by anyone. None of that incorporeal illusion crap and none of that just being a human pretending to be a deity crap.

How about if he incarnated himself physically as man?

Secondly, the god would have to perform supernatural feats that cannot be discounted as mere smokes and mirrors stage magic or technologically advanced hocus pocus.

What about rising from death after being crucified, being pierced through the heart with a spear and buried in a tomb for three days? You can't do that with smoke and mirrors/technology.

Also, the god would have to prove it is the creator of mankind by creating either another human

You could do that with advanced enough future technology such the Replicants in Blade Runner.

Lastly, but probably not least, though it may be harder to verify, one would have to discover whether the god is really a deity or merely a highly advanced alien life-form from elsewhere in the universe that possesses knowledge and power from a process of evolution.

Which would be impossible to do so you would have to believe in them on faith based on their fruits and the influence they would have on the world. Naturally God couldn't appear in physical form to everyone all at once it has to be in specific time and place in history and people would then record what they witnessed. So this fits all the evidence you demanded.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Cherry picking again I see...

I thought the Christ in that book wasn't the one you worship...

[Silver]

So this fits all the evidence you demanded.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

You were talking about miracles, yes? I'm telling you it can be studied and analyzed. You're not understanding the reproducible part. It isn't the miracle that has to be reproduced, it's the analysis. If the miracle doesn't happen again, what we say is there aren't enough study samples. But if there are enough study samples (in reality there are multiple miracle claims that are very similar), then the analysis can be done. By controlling for confounding factors we group people with similar properties together such that they are "repeats" of each other. I don't know why I'm explaining this to you since you are so bent on giving god properties that cannot be studied. But this is how many scientific studies are performed. They have their weaknesses but IMO superior to lab studies for this type of investigation.

If you want to go with what you just said. Which is god affects the world in undetectable ways. Then I can say god doesn't affect the world at all. Those are 2 theories that can be generated from the same evidence: which is no evidence of interference. But your theory assumes god. Now you need to justify why it makes sense to make this assumption.

Edit: ok, there are more than 2 theories than can be generated. There are multiple: aliens/christian god/allah/hindu gods/thor/poseidon/zeus/ares/buddha/Gandalf/etc. etc. are interfering the world in undetectable ways. So you REALLY need a justification to say it's your god.

You're wrong if you said my argument assumes God. What I said is if God exists and if He wants to, then He can affect this world without leaving any evidence that we can detect. Note that this argument does not require assumption that God exists. It can be true even if God does not exist. For example, proposition "if Superman exists then he can fly" can be true even if Superman does not exist.

Ok, so you're backing away from the miracle claims that you first brought up to say that they cannot be studied.

Also, don't forget that you are the one who claim that if God exist and affects the world in *anyway*, it must generate some form of evidence. What I'm doing is to refute this claim by arguing that maybe it generates some evidences but maybe not. I don't agree that it *must* generate evidence because it's possible that it does not generate any evidences.
Now, do you still hold to this claim especially the *anyway" part? Or you want to modify the *anyway* part?

No, I'm not backing away from that part. It must generate evidence, whether or not our technology is advanced enough to detect this evidence, it must generate evidence. If you put a cup in front of me, and I say I affected it, but in fact I did not at all, can you call me a liar or are you going to say I affected in but did not change anything at all? Which is what you're trying to say here. If god interfered and produced chances, evidence is generated. If he interfered but everything remained unchanged, he did not interfere.

I'm sure you realize how fast our technology advances in recent years. Can you imagine what kind of technology we will have in 100 years? How about in 1000 years? In million years?
Are you honestly said that you can't believe that a God or alien natural beings with technology far more advanced than what we have now cannot affect our world without leaving any evidence that can be detected by our current technology if they want to? You haven't answered this questions before.

Ok, I just did. But I think you missed my point, which is, there is no reason to think any of this is going on without evidence. And even if you want to push for that and say SOMETHING has to be interfering simply because it's theoretically possible, that possibility is not limited to your god.

[The Reality Salesman01]

So this fits all the evidence you demanded.

Thanks for saving me the trouble of pointing out the circular logic being offered up as evidence.

[Cyberman]

I have acknowledged, in many of my previous posts, that there is no known evidence that God exists. This of course also means that I also acknowledge that there is no known evidence that Jesus is the Son of God.
So why I believe that Jesus is the Son of God? I have actually answered this kind of question in my first post in this thread. I will answer it again in here.
There are 2 reasons (both must be fulfilled). First, because there is no evidence that He is not. Second, because believing that Jesus is the Son of God brings an overall positive impact to me.

[. . .]

Btw, you mentioned about the possibility that Jesus is just an imaginary, fraud, improperly documented, or a near-magical future being. I don't believe that but I admit it's a possibility. Do you have any evidence of this? If you do, what's the evidence?

Why are you asking for evidence of this when you just got done telling us you believe JC is the son of "God" on the basis of there being no evidence against it (which is a basic shifting of the burden of proof but we can let that go for the moment)?

---

Absence of proof in support of something is rather compelling evidence to the rational mind. If there is no evidence of its existence, it is counterproductive to reason that one should believe it exists nonetheless.

What would you class as evidence for God? A big bearded face suddenly appearing in the sky like in Star Trek V?

I realise you're not addressing me but this is a common red herring tactic. It's not about what we would class as evidence - it's not our job to propose evidence to prove your god. You're the ones making the claim this god exists; how about we start with what you class as evidence and go from there? Because in the absence of an actual god to analyse and cross-examine, we have to look at the claims that are made for it.

[discipulus]

I did not have to read past this initial false statement to know the rest of your diatribe is pure bullshit.

Most atheists will contend that should real, verifiable evidence be provided to support the existence of a god they would believe that god exists.

Indeed most atheists may contend exactly what you say.

But my point is in no way negated by that. It remains that if one is unwilling to believe, for whatever reason(s), then no amount of "verifiable evidence" will convince them. For this evidence would simply be explained away.

Numerous occasions of this happening are recorded in scripture.

You seem to think I am saying that atheists would still be atheists if they were given evidence that they would consider to be verifiable and good evidence. That is not what I am saying.

What one learns from that god upon realizing the god is real, however, would then determine whether the god was worthy of worship, if it even required it. If the god is anything as portrayed in the bible, then he would not be worthy of worship whatsoever.

For the one who holds your views, dialogue is simple. No argument really need be given to you. For you would not surrender your life to Christ even if you were convinced God existed. Huxley, Nagel, and people like yourself are actually easier to deal with and talk to. Once it is found that there is deeply rooted resentment and reluctance to worship God, no proof or argument need be given. For your reluctance to acknowledge God is ultimately not an intellectual one at all, but rather an emotional, willful resistance.

Here, something Ravi Zacharias said is so pertinent...

A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.