(January 16, 2021 at 11:56 am)Five Wrote: Do you often hear it asked of you, "What would convince you to believe/join a church"? I was thinking about this today and I have the answer for myself and I was wondering what people thought of it. Or what other people's personal standard of conversion is.
Yes, I most of the conversations I have with theists, will have that question posed to me.
Let me start off with saying, that there is a huge difference between being convinced a god or gods exist, and joining a church, mosque, temple, etc.
Being convince some specific god exists, would not lead me to joining a specific religion that worships said god, by default. For the most obvious example, if I was convinced that the Christian god exists, and the Bible is an accurate description of his actions and nature, I would not worship this god.
I would not longer be an atheist, but I would not be a Christian.
Now, concerning what would convince me that a god exists. That would be: demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, and valid and sound logic, that would support the claim that a god exists. Since none of that has ever been presented, I will remain an atheist.
What would such evidence and valid and sound evidence be? I could not tell you at this point.
That would be like asking someone from the early 1500's, what would convince them that undetectably tiny organisms are responsible for disease. How would they be able to predict the invention of the microscope in 1590?
But if there is a god, and it cares if I believe it exists, then they would certainly know how to convince me of their existence. The fact they haven't (yet), means to me, they don't care if I believe they exist, or no god exists.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
