Evidence that God exists

[Mark]

I apologize to all, but it is necessary for me to quote so as to keep clear what argument applies to what previous discussion.

I am trying to figure out what the "guts of the matter" could possibly be, given that the god in which you believe appears to be not only impossible of being encountered, but even somewhat disingenuous, since he had it put in his divine book that he has worked miracles at various times, miracles which you allege he is unable to have done.

I allege the opposite to what you are stating. I think God did do the miracles recorded in the Bible. I also think that it's poignant that these miracles are not provable.

But is it not an implication of your position that if God did indeed do the miracles reported in the Bible, they could not have been clearly recognizable as miracles by the persons beholding them? Had they been so, then these individuals would have seen proof of divine agency, hence of God himself. Is that not so? Surely today if we saw a man truly raised from the dead, or a man walk across water, or the Red Sea parted, we would say, this is clear evidence of the divine hand, would we not? So how is it possible that the authors of the Bible gave true reports of miracles, given that any such miracles would constitute an instance of God's direct revelation of himself, leading to clearly to the conclusion that he exists?

Jesus said "you see me, yet you still don't believe" (fr0d0 paraphrase ©) . Even with a personal encounter, there is no proof even to the person experiencing it, that it happened.

Well here I think you lapse into an unbecoming solipsism, where everything that is directly experienced can nevertheless be doubted. Granted that hallucination and mass hysteria are possible, the Biblical account doesn't suggest that the various miracles reported there were possibly the product of those things. You would argue a very barren case indeed, if your point were that even if very striking miracles were performed before one's eyes, one nevertheless could doubt their reality. It is possible to imagine miracles so striking and so subject to confirmation that the only sense in which I could doubt them would be the sense in which I could doubt the reality of my wife or my own children.

But it appears that you do not, after all, think that it is a logical necessity that the supposed God cannot work miracles -- deeds which, when beheld, lead clearly to the conclusion that he exists. It is just that, as a matter of fact does not do so. Am I right?

Forgive me. I find it difficult to get a clear idea of what you're trying to say in this paragraph. Hopefully I read you correctly here..

Do you know what logical necessity is? It is that the contrary is self-contradictory. It is not I, but you, who said that logically nothing could happen that would confirm god's existence. I continue to see no reason why that should be the case, and that has led us into this discussion of possible miracles.

Perhaps you meant that merely as a matter of fact, there is no evidence of miracles (that is very different from the logical necessity of the same). I agree, but that leaves open the question of the truth of the Bible, and also whether the supposed god might yet still choose to perform a miracle. You will be aware, I suppose, that science does not comment with any authority upon what might happen in the future; it only says what is implied by observation to date.

It's not a "necessity" that God works miracles. That he has, is very nice, thankyou. Our only hope would be that this would lead us to discover more about him.

The the point was never at issue as to whether it is necessary that god works miracles. The point at issue was that it is an implication of the unprovablility of God, asserted by you, that that he either persistently refuses to work or cannot work miracles. A miracle by definition is an even so strikingly inconsistent with the operation of natural forces, and so equally illustrative of divine agency, that the presence of the divine hand cannot reasonably be doubted. Any such event, e.g., Jesus appearing above Detroit and, by his blessing and by the wave of his hand, causing the entire city to be encrusted with gold and jewels, would be universally recognized as clear proof of God's existence. Therefore, according to you it would seem, it cannot happen. What I am trying to understand is why, according to you, it cannot happen.

"As a matter of fact", in the sense of provable fact, no, God does not supply. So in that sense you are right. A factual historian will never ever be able to prove the existence of God. I, on the other hand, have faith, and I believe that God did (and does) indeed do miracles as described in the Bible.

We are talking not only about history but about what can happen now and in the future. But again, the miracles described in the Bible would seem to be direct counter-examples to your claim that God cannot (or persistently does not) do anything that would support a valid claim that he exists.

Do you agree that there is no way to know whether God might someday work a miracle (as defined above)?

I wouldn't be able to predict the workings of God. That would be impossible of course. Given precedent however, I could assume that God will never work a miracle that would be provable, yes.

In the first place, you seem to equivocate between "a miracle" and "a miracle that would be provable." Most people use "miracle" in the way that I define the term above. They don't use in the sense of "a divine act but one that is nevertheless incapable of being known to be divine" -- a very special usage and one that would seem to be somewhat vacant of possible significance. It would be nice if you would just keep in mind my Jesus and Detroit example. Could this event ever transpire?

In the second place, question at hand was not whether the supposed god will ever work a miracle, but upon what basis one could know this. In particular, upon what basis do you know that Jesus/Detroit will never happen? Is not the best that can be said, "We do not know?"

That is, we cannot know whether the supposed god is incapable of doing miracles or whether, for the time being, he merely chooses not to do them?

You cannot know in any provable sense, is my point, No.

I do not know what it means, to "know in any provable sense," some thing that is a matter of fact. Since we are not talking about conventional truth (e.g. logic or mathematics), there is no question of proof. I am using "know" in the empirical sense; in the same sense in which we know that the sun is a star or that it is 93 million miles from the earth. Can we know in this sense whether God will at some future time perform the Jesus/Detroit thing?

But if you will concede that there is no sense in which we can know this, then upon what basis can you say that nothing can ever happen that would confirm the existence of god, in the same way that things happen every day that confirm the existence of the sun?

And so, that god will never work a miracle is a claim incapable of being supported by fact, but is instead an article of faith? (I do not use this term in a pejorative sense, since I among the articles of my faith are not only that there will never be any miracles, but that there are no gods to do them.)

It is indeed a claim incapable of being supported by fact. Precisely.

Will you then explicitly agree that this claim is for you, an article of faith?

Taking this article of faith as a starting point, then, do you agree that it is an implication of your position that the supposed god can never answer prayer in any consistent way, or systematically favor the faithful over the unfaithful, or the good over the wicked, since doing so would create a empirical basis for proving his existence?

You presume that God could not provably doing anything = God not actually doing something. This is incorrect.

I concede that the given proposition is incorrect, but it is nothing I claim. I merely claim that if the supposed god did any of the things that I list here, this would be very convincing evidence of his existence. And since it is an article of your faith that god is either incapable or unwilling to give any such evidence, the implication is that he cannot or will not do any of the listed things. Do you agree?

Do you agree this particular article of faith implies that the supposed god cannot convincingly and consistently address a person in his mind, still less directly reveal divine truth, since doing so would permit that person to draw the quite reasonable conclusion that he exists? Or is it only groups of people to which the supposed God is incapable of revealing his existence?

God is constantly revealing himself to everyone, in every moment. You are like a naked person in a desert with no possible shelter, and he is the Sun.

The implication is that the revelation of truth is constantly available, It is up to the individual to accept it or not, with complete choice. It would be correct, given the model, for either choice to be perfectly reasonable.

The question is not whether the supposed god is constantly revealing himself and his truth, but whether he is doing so in a manner that would clearly and convincingly cause anyone to conclude that he exists. Is he speaking directly into anyone's mind, for example? For if he is, then this is a counter-example to your claim that he either cannot or will not act so as to lead anyone to a factually-supported conclusion that he exists.

Do you agree that if this is true, then it must be that Jesus gave no clear sign to men that he was a god? In particular, that he was not resurrected from the dead?

To some it was clear, and yet to people standing next to them, seeing and hearing exactly the same thing, it was not. This perfectly follows my proposition I think.
I believe he did and was, you believe the opposite (or don't accept it to any degree)

Well, exactly what do you suppose it was that Jesus did to convince some people that he was resurrected from the dead and yet allow others to reasonably reject this conclusion? If what is reported in the Bible actually happened, it would seem to have lead rather forcibly to the conclusion that Jesus was resurrected. I don't recall, does it say in the Bible that some people who saw Jesus resurrected nevertheless doubted it?

Do you think that there is a life after death, and if so, do you maintain that it will be possible to know at that time, for certain, whether or not the supposed god exists?

Thankyou for asking. I was avoiding the other thread on this as I didn't want to confuse things by adding my personal feelings on that. But since you ask, I'd be happy to say here.

To me the effects of Christianity are immediate, in a sense. Life and death as defined as heaven and hell aren't to do with some heebie jeebie unknown life after death nonsense, they're about our lives now. You can live both by the choices you make; you either grasp life or you rot and decay letting it go. This isn't my unique idea BTW, it's a mainstream one.

When you die, you'll carry on in the memories of those you affected, and in the artifacts you leave behind. That's all.

Thanks for this Mark, I'm enjoying it.

Well you're welcome to your beliefs, but they would seem to be rather dull dishwater compared to orthodox Christian doctrine. You also seem to have worked yourself into a box whereby your faith is something of a tautology, a thing that cannot possibly be supported by anything besides itself; and whereby there would be absolutely no difference in the world if the object of your faith did not exist. It seems to me that you've conceded so much of the ground usually defended by Christians that you might as well become an atheist and save some time for reading the newspaper on Sunday mornings.