What would you consider to be evidence for God?

[Tonus]

Posting blogs about debunking fine tuning and talks of multiverses is not an argument.

The blog posts are expanding upon the point, and showing other ways in which the fine-tuning argument falls short.

I can post just as many from the other perspective.

Since the "other perspective" amounts to expressing the idea and nothing more, it wouldn't really balance the scales. The first link I posted takes the time to consider the argument from that other perspective. It's not very convincing.

I did not bring God in to the discussion, you did.

The fine-tuning argument is meant to imply --if not outright lead to-- a creator god. My reply is meant to skip over the awkward portion where you pretend that you're not working towards god as a conclusion.

And yes, some very smart men have run into very thorny issues at various times, which is what happens when you seek knowledge and ask questions. Some of these issues have been resolved, some have not. Time and discovery lead us to more knowledge and a better understanding, and the continued education of humanity has not moved the fine-tuning idea forward. We have no reason to think that universes can be tuned, much less that ours rests upon some miraculously-chosen, impossibly-narrow band of values required for life to exist.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

---

I'm not sure what you mean by it's not fine tuned for anything.  The scientific community in large part recognizes the extreme balance of particles and constants and how if they varied slightly, carbon based life would be impossible.  There are scores of scientific articles written about it and agnostic and atheist scientists have acknowledged these "conincideces", such as Stephen Hawking and Steven Weinberg:

In his best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time", Stephen Hawking (perhaps the world's most famous cosmologist) refers to the phenomenon as "remarkable."
The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life". "For example," Hawking writes, "if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded. It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers (for the constants) that would allow for development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.
Hawking then goes on to say that he can appreciate taking this as possible evidence of "a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science (by God)" (ibid. p. 125).

Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal "Scientific American", reflects on:
how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.
Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg's wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:
One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning -- The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.
This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000,
but instead:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001,

---

there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:
the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.

Also you may smack your head if you wish, but I was hoping for some sort of response to the question I posed

Does Weinberg know that hydrogen atoms form stars?  And does he know that hydrogen atoms create gravity which makes it possible for them to clump together into massive balls?

[Psychonaut]

lkingpinl,

It's unfortunate that I've come back some time later, to see that you've tried to derail my thread with your nonsense. I should have mentioned that this thread was not really aimed at theists, as it is clear you're going to say "Well gad dangit it's the bible/quran/insert religious text here" or "I believe in unfalsifiable things because of X" [where X = a fallacy/misrepresentation of science].

So i'll bring it back. You've done nothing to actually show your point (at least, as well as you can given the current nature of human understanding). You are trying to hit at god as a cause, because you believe in god. Don't play games and act as though you are just being inquisitive, as your "build up to god" approach to debate is clearly shown in to your first post in this thread. I do not consider your apparent evidence as evidence (which, judging by the nature of your statements, is in my second example of why it should have been stated that this wasn't aimed at theists), nor can anyone with good reason, in light of what we understand currently within science, and the philosophy of science. This is because what you are driving at is based on the assumption that you have proof for something that no one can currently have proof for. Or in other words, it's unfalsifiable.

This is the crux of the matter that I was hitting at in the OP, or as I had stated in another post in this thread, the question behind the question. How on earth do you KNOW? How do we get past the solipsistic tendency of truth and move forward in to someplace in which we can establish facts, rather than espousing well attested hypotheses that are subject to error (or in your case, poorly constructed hypotheses which are also subject to error)?

Unfortunately, you could be absolutely right, and the fact that there is no way to test whether or not you are right is a problem. It is the bane of humanity, it is the reason people have died unnecessarily for beliefs throughout the ages. Without a strong means of being able to discern "truth" (what ever that means), there is no way to establish whether or not you are right or wrong with 100% certainty.

Perhaps my criteria is impossible, but again: I do not know whether or not that is the case (as with any truth claim), as I have no way to test them and draw accurate conclusions.

I do hope you understand what I've said.

[Kingpin]

lkingpinl,

It's unfortunate that I've come back some time later, to see that you've tried to derail my thread with your nonsense. I should have mentioned that this thread was not really aimed at theists, as it is clear you're going to say "Well gad dangit it's the bible/quran/insert religious text here" or "I believe in unfalsifiable things because of X" [where X = a fallacy/misrepresentation of science].

So i'll bring it back. You've done nothing to actually show your point (at least, as well as you can given the current nature of human understanding). You are trying to hit at god as a cause, because you believe in god. Don't play games and act as though you are just being inquisitive, as your "build up to god" approach to debate is clearly shown in to your first post in this thread. I do not consider your apparent evidence as evidence (which, judging by the nature of your statements, is in my second example of why it should have been stated that this wasn't aimed at theists), nor can anyone with good reason, in light of what we understand currently within science, and the philosophy of science. This is because what you are driving at is based on the assumption that you have proof for something that no one can currently have proof for. Or in other words, it's unfalsifiable.

This is the crux of the matter that I was hitting at in the OP, or as I had stated in another post in this thread, the question behind the question. How on earth do you KNOW? How do we get past the solipsistic tendency of truth and move forward in to someplace in which we can establish facts, rather than espousing well attested hypotheses that are subject to error (or in your case, poorly constructed hypotheses which are also subject to error)?

Unfortunately, you could be absolutely right, and the fact that there is no way to test whether or not you are right is a problem. It is the bane of humanity, it is the reason people have died unnecessarily for beliefs throughout the ages. Without a strong means of being able to discern "truth" (what ever that means), there is no way to establish whether or not you are right or wrong with 100% certainty.

Perhaps my criteria is impossible, but again: I do not know whether or not that is the case (as with any truth claim), as I have no way to test them and draw accurate conclusions.

I do hope you understand what I've said.

Psychonaut, 

I fully understand with what you are saying and even more so, fully agree.  None of us may know with 100% certainty.  We can only believe based on our interpretation of the evidence laid before us.  I can only say that I believe there to be a God based on not just one piece of evidence but a culmination of evidence that points to this beyond a reasonable doubt.  I liken it to a court trial where evidence is presented on both sides, some may believe one side more than another or find the arguments more compelling from one side to be able to make a decision beyond "reasonable" doubt.  

This argument if God vs. No God is not a slam dunk case on either side.  I am not out to sway anyone to my side only give reasons why I personally believe the evidence points to a God.  There are unfalsifiable claims on both sides.  It really comes down to what the individual finds the most reasonable to accept.  

You are correct that I may be right and the same goes the opposite.  You may be right.  There may be no God.  But this was exactly the point of Pascal's Wager.

[snowtracks]

Continuing on the preciseness  or the big bang forces - This precise balance between gravity and dark energy is documented in the Hawking, Modinow book ‘The Grand Design. From chapter 7 "the laws of nature form a system that is extremely fine-tuned, and very little in physical law can be altered without the possibility of the development of life as we know it". Goes on to say that the Cosmological Constant (the energy density that causes the universe's expansion, referred to as dark energy) has a value 10^120 (as a comparison, the est. atoms in the observable universe is 10^80. (). Continuing - "the one thing that is certain is that if the value of the Cosmological Constant were much larger than it is, our universe would have blown itself apart before galaxies could form--once again--life as we know it would impossible".
Historical sciences such as astronomy, paleontology, geology oftentimes make inferences to the best explanation of the observed data. By itself, the expansion balance between these competing forces is quite impressive to indicate this was planned rather than unplanned, but not conclusive. But many other examples pretty much clinch the deal - here’s just 2.

1) For instance, there’s an abundance of data to indicate cyanobacteria (*biochemical complex) existed by 3.5 bya a mere 400 mil years after the Hadean era fully functional (**too intricate and developed for any naturalistic model in this span of time).

2) The brain and thought. Thought needs a fully functional brain. To posit the brain self-assembly without thought, one would be proposing that after eons of eternity, one day there as a thought. Wonder what that first thought was, perhaps -‘well we finally achieved it; good thing we THOUGHT of everything like information to replicate ourselves, capability to convert energy to a usable form (boy that metabolism was a toughie), and information stored to replicate ourselves; well of course we need to try that out, hope it works or we go back into eternity’.

*The cell wall and membrane cannot be constructed without proteins, RNA & DNA; and these molecules cannot achieve stability without the cell wall & membrane.
**https://www.google.com/search?q=cyanobac...kZ32SUY%3D

[robvalue]

It seems to me that the success we have in modelling reality as predictable is very good evidence that any kind of "divine interaction" is similarly predictable, or non existent.

If God was screwing around constantly, actually making physical changes to things, we'd expect to see anomalies occurring all over the place. Our models would be incredibly makeshift and would fall apart often. That's not what we see. Of course there are still things we don't understand, and occasionally weird things happen. But these become desperate bastions of the God of the gaps and do not relate to the way most religious theists seem to talk about a God who is forever sticking his finger in the pie.

[Kingpin]

Rob, I see far too many non theists describing theists to holding to a God of the gaps.

What snow tracks presented is not a god of the gaps and I don't think any reasonable thinking theist would ascribe to such an argument. We believe in a God that did the whole thing. The parts we don't yet understand and the ones we do. It is because of the parts we do understand that we can further cement our belief in a rationally intelligent cause.

We believe in invisible forces all of the time (gravity, wind, etc) because we can see their effects we can deduce their existence. You have even made the comment that a case could be reasonably made for Deism. It's when we use the term "God" it is accepted to mean a personal, interactive deity and that is where the roadblock is for which most atheists cannot accept.

[robvalue]

I wasn't referring to what he said, it was a general thought I had

I'm not too sure how to respond to what you've written there! I have no idea what a "personal god" is actually meant to mean, or what it does.

Gravity... yeah... we have learnt to be able to model it and found it to be predictable, whatever it is. I've no what "god" is meant to be doing, other than people randomly attributing things to it.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Evidence: "the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid."

I would consider evidence of god if there exists an available body of facts or information indicating the existence of a god.

[Kingpin]

Evidence: "the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid."

I would consider evidence of god if there exists an available body of facts or information indicating the existence of a god.

How do you determine valid evidence from invalid evidence?