Evidence for Believing

[Simon Moon]

Quote from Simon Moon:
But I ask again, why would your god, provide us with the ability to figure out a method, that actually can be demonstrated to differentiate fact from fantasy for every other aspect of reality, yet for his existence, he purposely hides from said method?

Reply:

I don't know, but as I answered before, maybe he wants us to believe for that reason.  The ability he gave us that you mentioned is to distinguish natural reality, not supernatural reality.  Maybe he wants us to know we must rely completely on him.  I don't know why.  From my experience, I just believe it is.  Why not be open to that as billions of other smart people are?  You  can't accept that there can be any other way to know something, so just dismiss it.

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Hopefully you can understand why this, and almost every other one of your answers and 'evidence', is completely unsatisfactory for us.

We understand WHAT you believe, we want to know WHY you believe it. We continually ask for evidence, because you keep providing us BAD evidence.

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I think personal evidence is evidence. Not proof, but evidence. If we define evidence as "anything which gives added credence to a proposition." If someone has a religious experience, it is not unreasonable for that person to feel that the possibility of the existence of God is more likely to be true than he did before. If he's honest he has to accept that he may be deluded -- but we all have to accept that about most things.

I actually agree, personal (and even anecdotal) evidence is evidence. It is just probably among the worst types of evidence.

Just last night I was watching a Netflix series on how the brain works. They interviewed several people to recount their memories of 9/11. One person remembered her mother was working downtown NY at the time, she remembered seeing the smoke blowing over the water from her classroom, and other details. Fact is, her mother was in England, her classroom was too far and facing the wrong way to see the smoke, and the smoke wasn't even blowing the right direction. Her memory of this extremely intense and momentous event, was completely wrong.

This type of faulty memory is far from unique.

If someone can be so wrong about a known existent event, then why not about an event that is nowhere near as evident as this?

Also I think that an appeal to numbers constitutes evidence --- though not proof.

So, lets say that in 150 years from now, the vast majority of humanity does not believe in any gods. Will that be convincing evidence that gods don't exit?

Suppose you went to a small town you'd never visited before, and you asked 100 people what the best restaurant in town is. If 99 people give the same answer, that is solid evidence (not proof) that it really is the best restaurant in town. 

Likewise, if a billion people say they have personal experience of God, then that is evidence (not proof). 

This analogy is flawed in so many ways, I'm not even going waste time on it.

And if billions of other people say they have personal experiences, different from the personal experiences, with different gods, than the billion people you mention, is that evidence that their god(s) exist?

Now you may reject the testimony of a billion people about God, while accepting the testimony of 99 people about the restaurant, because they are testimony concerning different categories -- a metaphysical truth versus an aesthetic one. But it shows that what you're rejecting isn't the possibility of numbers serving as evidence. You're rejecting the ability of any proof -- numerical or otherwise -- in certain categories.

Yes, I reject the numbers for the belief in gods, while accepting the numbers who tell me what the best restaurant in town is.

Do you really need it explained to you why?
Seriously...